Teaser Trailer for Park Chan-wook's New Movie No Other Choice

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As a big fan of both Park Chan-wook and Lee Byung-hun, it should come as no surprise that No Other Choice is my most anticipated film of 2025 (or 2026 if it doesn’t get released in the UK this year).

The Story

Park’s new movie is based on the book "The Axe" by Donald Westlake, in which a man desperate to gain employment goes around slaughtering his competitors. The book was released in the 1990s, and Park actually announced that he was going to adapt it at the Busan International Film Festival in 2009. Many projects have come in between, but it is clear that Park wanted to get his adaptation just right, claiming that he wanted "to make this film as my masterpiece.", and I believe (judging by this trailer) that the many years it has taken to complete the film have worked in the director’s favour.

Also, it must be said that the thematic nature of No Other Choice feels very eerie given the current job market. We’re in what is dubbed “Late Stage Capitalism”, and if you couple that instability-ridden system with the interference of AI, jobs are getting much harder to secure. Are we gonna start seeing unhinged nutters scouring LinkedIn profiles and using them as assassination checklists? Probably not, but that’s what will make this film so compelling because it will more than likely tell the story of an everyman pushed to the very brink to provide for his family. And that, my friends, is a subject matter so rich in terms of character development and psychological analysis. I truly believe Park will have the skills as the master storyteller he is to navigate a fascinating and heartbreaking story like this.

The Cast

Obviously, I am a massive Lee Byung-hun fan - according to Letterboxd, I’ve seen 16 of his movies, which doesn’t seem like much, but in reality, it’s still quite tricky to watch Korean movies in the UK.

But enough about Lee, what about the rest of the cast?

Son Ye-jin, I loved her in Something in the Rain, which is one of my all-time favourite Korean dramas. Park Hee-soon was an absolute scene stealer in My Name. Yoo Yeon-seok had a brief appearance in Oldboy and shared the screen with Lee Byung-hun in the brilliant historical melodrama Mr Sunshine, so I’m very much looking forward to his performance in this, too.

Cinematography and other choices

Stylistically No Other Choice feels very much like an amalgamation of every Park directed film and TV show out there. It’s the work of a master who has refined his style over the years. From the trailer you can grasp hints of Stoker in the sound design, the vengence trilogy in the stylish violence, the rich colour paletted interior designs of Decision to Leave and The Handmaiden, the oddball quirkiness of I’m a Cyborg, But that’s ok (like why is Lee shimmying through a dancefloor of people dressed as napoleon or conceling a gun under several oven gloves?!)

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life Review

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Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (Jane Austen a gâché ma vie) is a French language (and some English in there too) romantic comedy written and directed by Laura Piani.

It feels like this rom-com was made specifically for me: An aspiring writer who works at a bookshop* in Paris goes to a writer's retreat in the English countryside that’s hosted by descendants of Jane Austen. Well, I suppose it's just the dream of every bibliophile who has perhaps watched the 2005 Pride and Prejudice at least 100 times and bawled their eyes out reading Wentworth’s letter to Anne at the end of Persuasion.

Agathe sits in front of her lap top but rests her chin on her hand staring wistfully offscreen. Writer's block has never looked so romantic

Writer’s Block be like…

But perhaps what hit me the most about this film is how Agathe avoids things; she’s coasting through life and has massive impostor syndrome, which stamps out her creativity. Her best friend is the one who gets her onto the retreat. Still, she tries to resist going due to past trauma (involving a car accident- though girl could have taken the Eurostar?) but also because she’s worried that everyone else will be better than her and that she doesn’t really belong there and that she is only fooling herself that she is a writer.

Hmmm, a bit too relatable on the avoidance front.

Agathe and Oliver dance at the Jane Austen themed Ball. They are looking deepely into each others eyes.

Agathe and Oliver dance at an obligatory ball scene - one does not simply do Jane Austen without making the main character share an intimate dance with a love interest or two.

The film is rather charming and plays out like a Rohmer feature, perhaps a Hong Sang-soo movie, and unfortunately, one must mention Woody Allen too. There’s also a recurring musical motif which, to my Wong Kar-Wai obsessed brain, has a very In the Mood for Love vibe to it - I can’t seem to track down the piece, but the opening refrain sounds very similar to Yumeji's Theme by Shigeru Umebayashi. But maybe that’s because they are both Waltzes…I dunno, I’m not particularly clued up on music.

Agathe and her friend Félix look at each other with friendly smiles. Agathe is holding an umbrella to keep both of them kind of dry in the English rain.

Agathe and her friend Félix,

In conclusion, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life wears its Rom-Com tropes on its sleeves, which isn’t a bad thing as it satisfyingly delivers them, and one can’t not mention that there’s also a very Hugh Grant-esque love interest who echoes Mr Darcy through and through (though no Hand Flex™ in sight). Just wait for this to become every bookish girl's, gay’s or they’s fave comfort movie.

*The Iconic Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Interestingly, after a short amount of research, Piani actually used to work at Shakespeare and Company - this time in her life was a clear inspiration for the film.

May 2025 Wrap Up: I Who Have Never Known Men, Star Trek TNG movies and I cried at Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

Welcome back for my May 2025 wrap-up, featuring highlights such as existential dread in 'I Who Have Never Known Men', watching all the Star Trek: The Next Generation Movies and crying at the final TNG episode. I also cried at Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, got exasperated by the latest Wes Anderson movie and lost my sh*t after my camera died with 1 last thing to talk about.

I also had a sojourn in Germany, which included a couple of movies (one set in East Berlin in the 1980s and another by my fave German director, Christian Petzold) and a funny, weird comedy show that merged mindfulness with murder.

April Wrap Up: Bonjour Tristesse, Sinners, Black Mirror, French movies, Carême + more

April was such a great month for movies and TV shows. Ryan Coogler dropped an absolute modern masterpiece with Sinners, and Apple TV+ released some great shows with Your Friends & Neighbours and Carême. Oh, and I finally started delving into Black Mirror properly after the newest season dropped on Netflix, and let me tell you I am hooked!

I also had a decent reading month by finishing Dune Messiah and Recitatif by Toni Morrison. I also read Bonjour Tristesse and made a nice dent in The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss.