This article is by Kim Ji-ye and read by an artificial voice.



After over two decades, Korean auteur Park Chan-wook's latest black comedy "No Other Choice" reunites the director with actor Lee Byung-hun, coming together for the first time since their last collaboration on Park's 2000 film "Joint Security Area." Yet this long-awaited reunion might never have happened had the director pursued the project earlier.

"Over the past 25 years, we often met, and every time Lee says that we should work together again, and I would tell him to get older faster," said the director during an interview at a cafe in central Seoul on Tuesday. "[Because] his face always looked too smooth for his age," and therefore didn't suit the role of a middle-aged breadwinner of a family.

Park began writing the screenplay in 2009 and initially planned to produce it overseas. But after a series of changes, the film was ultimately made in Korea, taking 16 years to come to life.

"If I had to give a reason why this film took so long, I'd say it was all to meet him," the director added with a laugh.



An adaptation of U.S. writer Donald E. Westlake's 1997 novel "The Ax," the film follows Man-su, portrayed by Lee Byung-hun, a middle-aged man who is abruptly laid off from his company and resorts to extreme measures in his desperate search for new employment. It features a seasoned cast, with Lee joined by Son Ye-jin, Lee Sung-min, Park Hee-soon and Yeom Hye-ran.

The film was also recently invited to numerous renowned international film festivals, competing at the Venice International Film Festival and opening this year's Busan International Film Festival.

Son is a Korean film powerhouse in her own right. Her part in this picture, however, is relatively small compared to her recent projects. Regarding this, Park recalled that something Son jokingly told him at their first meeting stuck with him throughout the making of the film, leading him to put more effort into her role of Mi-ri.

"When I first met Son, she asked me, 'Even though my role is small, please make sure that after friends watch the movie, they won't say, "Why did you do that movie?'" he said. "It was really scary. From that day on, I tried to keep that promise, revising the script many times. Also, the role gradually grew, and I tried to make even a single line a bit more fun."



The director also revealed that he considered other titles for the film, including one he had thought of two decades ago and personally favored, but that others found too shocking.

"When the out-of-print original novel was being reissued, I wrote a foreword for it, and in it, I said that if I were to make it into a movie, I'd want to title it 'Mogaji' [vulgar Korean slang for 'neck']. That was in 2006," said the director during an interview at a cafe in central Seoul on Tuesday.

"But when I told people that I wanted to go with 'Mogaji,' everybody around me totally freaked out. So I couldn't use it," he said, adding that "The Ax" was also ruled out since, in English, it can imply getting laid off, but that meaning doesn't carry over in Korean. In Korea, the expression "to have one's neck cut" is a slang term that refers to being fired.

He said that the final contenders came down to "No Other Choice" and a title that translates to "Stuff to Do in Autumn," reflecting the seasonal changes that play an important role in the film, according to the director.

The film satirizes issues such as layoffs, re-employment and job insecurity through the journey of Man-su. Park emphasized that the core of the story lies in how deeply audiences can empathize with the protagonist's actions and emotions along the way.

"When Lee Byung-hun is acting, the audience is drawn in by his presence, feeling anxious at the thought that his character might make a mistake," Park said.

"And then, when they snap out of it, they might think, 'What is he doing?' hoping he doesn't fall any further morally," he added. "I wanted the audience to go back and forth l...