In Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has only ever known the paper industry and takes drastic measures to protect his family’s livelihood when he’s laid off and realizes that there is fierce competition for few positions
Awards Buzz spoke with Lee Byung-hun about what he was able to relate to about this desperation-driven character:
“I think the fact that this film deals with the paper industry is a very intelligent choice because with the development of the internet, the paper industry has naturally had to downsize. And I think Man-su and the other characters in the film, they feel like specialists because they’re creating this special paper. And to go a little bit even further than that, they see themselves as artists, as you can see in the dialogue. So when they lose their job, they really can’t imagine going into another industry. And I think there are definitely parallels to that with the film industry. When I read the script, I naturally asked myself the question, what if that happened to me? As soon as I became an adult, I’ve really just been an actor my entire life. I’ve been a performer for the masses making art in this way. I really thought, if I lost my acting job, what can I do? That’s a very depressing conjecture.”
Byung-hun discussed his excitement at getting to work with director Park Chan-wook and the fact that the film is actually based on an American novel transplanted to South Korea. He also addressed his role in the popular TV series Squid Game and how his character in this project might be just as hopeless as the doomed contestants in that competition but probably wouldn’t opt to do it for love of his family.
No Other Choice is now playing in select theaters.
