Lee Byung-hun did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Yoo Man-su in No Other Choice.
No Other Choice follows a laid off paper company finding ways to eliminate his competition in order to procure a position.
I will admit along with so many here I could not have been more excited to not only see the great Lee Byung-hun to team up with Park after a 25 year creative separation from their mutual breakout of JSA, but also with the idea of the film’s plot as a leading role for him. I have not hidden my praise for Lee as a performer over the years, and I’ll admit it was with great satisfaction to see him get at least minor recognition via Golden Globe for this film, even if I knew it was never going to amount to more than that. And going into the film I couldn’t help but have a certain notion in my mind about Lee playing a coldly brutal villain checking names off permanently as the cinematic badass we’ve come to know him as in his great work in The Good the Bad The Weird, I Saw the Devil and of course A Bittersweet Life. So it was quite the surprise when Lee seemingly threw out his own very successful playbook from the moment we enter into the film on an idyllic barbecue at the grand house of his Yoo Man-su, and we see a decidedly quite goofy looking Lee sporting not exactly the coolest looking mustache and Hawaiian shirt. Lee offers a presence totally out of the ordinary for him as a performer, and pulls it off with a different kind of ease. An ease in his own performance but something else within the character of Man-su’s own approach to basically being the ideal dad/family man, cooking his eel with pride stating how important it is as a gift laid on a bit too thickly by Man-su. Lee presents a pride in Man-su that frankly is a bit much, but as it should be a bit much, to the point of becoming comical illustrating a man who feels he needs to reinforce just how important his job and the success of the job is to him. The importance of the “ideal” family and even reinforcing how proud he is of his sexual prowess with his wife Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin), with the same a bit more than needed from Lee, but pitch perfect in setting up Man-su who defines his life a bit too overtly by what he gets from his job. The cherry on the top of the sequence being when he calls his family in for a sixty second group hug, where Lee’s portrays real joy mixed in with a bit much joy of Man-su needing for himself and his family to acknowledge just how great their life is as a man who must doubly convince himself of the importance of himself as the breadwinner.
Lee’s performance in that opening scene does two things, one is establish the nature of Man-su’s particular drive and establishing just how important not only his job is but even more so what the job represents to him as a person, but more so Lee establishes the tone of the performance, where quite frankly he has the brilliant willingness to be a bit goofy. In this case running with the idea of the overbearing dad. We then find Lee as he prepares a passionate speech to his company to defend the jobs of his coworkers, and Lee again excels with very much reinforcing just how silly Man-su is at a fundamental level with how he treats his job. In this case Lee, who certainly could make a dramatic passionate speech about the importance of the jobs of his coworkers, instead excels in subverting that a bit in bringing a try hard speech of someone who where the calculation is a bit too obvious and even his little aside about the importance of his coworkers is again Lee’s delivery of laying it on a bit too thick that reveals much about Man-su. Unfortunately for Man-su he basically gets one word out of his speech to the American owners of the company before they drive off leaving Lee’s hilarious reaction as the totally lost Man-su in seeing his plan go up in smoke, only topping that with his reaction to finding out that he too is being cut out of the plant work. Lee, who often brings a cool in roles, is great here by excelling not being cool in the least as we witness Man-su attempting to deal with his world while no longer being employed by his paper company. Where we see Lee then as the man dealing with the company mandated program for losing his job where he goes about various “wellness” activities to support himself, and Lee wonderfully plays that sense of desperation now in Man-su trying to force himself in another direction. Projecting such a festering sense of vulnerability in every act particularly his not at all calming tapping of his head while reciting mantras to find success again. Exacerbating the situation is we see at Man-su’s home that his wife will have to go back to work, they’ll have to give up Netflix, their golden retrievers, and possibly even sell Man-su’s childhood house. Lee’s near silence speaks volumes in the rundown of his losses scenes, where you see in his expression this hollowness in himself as a man who seems like his dreams are being stripped away from him. Lee expresses the fundamental weight of the loss within Man-su as we see a near broken man as he loses his “perfect” world.
Man-su initially does try to make it back into the workforce through more typical means where we see him however in an interview where Lee is wonderfully awkward in his less than skillful interviewing method. I especially love the overeager glee as he stumbles around in his delivery of stating that he has no flaws before sloppily readjusting to stating it as his inability to say no, where Lee’s perfectly stupid looking smile just denotes someone who has no idea what he’s doing at a fundamental level and there is no confidence whatsoever that he would be able to get the job merely through an interview. Lee then presents the fixation on the idea of success so intently though less of a man with an insatiable drive and more so a rather silly fool pathetically watching Choi Seon-chul (Park Hee-soon), the man with the job he’d like to have. The first man he considers killing as he takes on a large vase to drop on his head, where Lee creates this immediate narrowmindedness in the moment in his eyes of a man just completely caught up in the moment before he rightfully ponders that merely killing this man will in no way guarantee him getting a job. What Lee presents effectively is the jealousy prodding Man-su to this extreme as he becomes intent on literally killing his competition, going so far as to create a fake paper company to gather resumes in order to find the only men who could get a job over him potentially and determine their fate. Lee finds even a captivating energy in presenting this conviction in every step of this process, suggesting Man-su at his most professional and perhaps if he puts this effort into just an interview he probably could secure a job, but instead he decides that triple homicide is a better idea. A key masterful element of Lee’s performance is all the insecurities to this point, the hollowness as he sees other people look through his own home for purchase, he makes it just the natural progression for Man-su who simply sees no other choice than to become a murderer.
Making this choice however does not lead to any kind of badass as we’d expect from Lee, instead quite the opposite as he begins his first stakeout of target number one, Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), the unemployed paper expert whose wife Lee A-ra (Yeom Hye-ran) is currently cheating on him. Lee is extraordinary in every bit of performance he does in this whole sequence which is less the setup of a deadly assassin and more so the bumbling actions of a real fool. Lee creates a buffet of enjoyment throughout the process of watching Beom-mo and his wife. Part of it is just the physicality of his performance because really typically again Lee is someone who knows how to move in a very controlled and just simply cool way as shown in numerous performances. Here Lee finds a way to be just so wonderfully bumbling yet wholly natural in a way that presents Man-su as far from cut out for this job with the first kill. He sticks out like a proper sore thumb through every moment of the stakeout just as he moves without precision and with a lot of effort. I especially adore every second of when he is watching over Beom-mo and his wife. Where every Lee reaction is comic gold as we see just the way he licks his lips when he sees them eating fried chicken, to his sympathetic head nodding when Beom-mo explains his refusal to take another job than a paper goods one due to his training and expertise. Lee manages to do two things with these moments, one being just simply very funny while also conveying the sense of connection that Man-su has with this other man he's planning on killing. I’d be remiss though if I also didn’t mention the moment where Man-su believes himself to be bit by a snake, where Beom-mo’s wife drains the venom, quite medically ineffectually for him for a bit sexual need, where Lee’s reactions first in his confusion along with fear, followed by then his after the fact shrugging annoyance is just a bit more great comedy from the performer.
That is but a warmup act to the sequence where Man-su goes about the actual murder, which is only after poor Beom-mo has caught his wife, despite Man-su’s attempt to prevent him from doing so, where importantly Lee presents a whole lot of earnest desire to help the man…he’s going to kill, but creates that consistent sense of Man-su putting himself in the man’s shoes despite not quite fully making the connection. Leading to the moment where Man-su comes in with his father’s gun to kill the poor man while Beom-mo is living in his sorrows while listening to his record. A sequence that might be the greatest of 2025, at least it is certainly in contention. Lee is magnificent part of the scene starting with the attempt at a grim killer’s face as he aims his gun at the man, only for such incredible micro expressions on Lee’s face switch where you see the needling guilt in the moment as he has the poor man dead to rights, only for the man to make a final plea for himself including his wife’s love, just as his wife comes behind Man-su with an award, where Lee’s performance is a hilarious but also weirdly moving blend of anger with sympathy as he chews out the poor man for not taking a different sensible job. Lee’s whole performance in the scene is so good because he manages to be very funny by bringing this random passion in a scene where Man-su should be ice cold but by also showing the underlying sense of Lee seeing Beom-mo as himself, as he’s essentially yelling at himself, yet separating the idea by putting all this against Beom-mo who he’s frustrated with but in no way hates. A bullet only coming out of the gun and hitting Beom-mo in the shoulder purely by accident, with Lee’s “whoops” reaction also being hilarious and showing just how not cut out for the situation Man-su is in every step of this. Leading to a totally ridiculous brawl on the floor between the three, where Lee’s movements are less trained killer and more of man bad at twister, leading him to run away when the wife gets the gun and only to luck out when she decides to shoot her husband first. Lee’s getting to play genuine horror at seeing the crime he failed to do, before also getting comic gold when after the death of her husband she turns to Man-su and Lee’s reaction of pure fear is absolutely hilarious. With the comic topper perhaps being Lee’s adrenaline fueled exasperation as he drives away from his accidentally successful crime, and particularly his double horror first of seeing how many missed calls he has from his wife then noticing he’s on empty.
Speaking of Man-su’s wife, parallel to casing his first “victim”, we see as Man-su very much fails to hide his secrets from his wife. Where Lee’s performance brings this consistent silly awkwardness of the man attempting to present one thing for another, while bringing this quiet sense of paranoia in his eyes anytime his wife interacts with her dentist boss, a younger man, who refuses even to have him check his aching tooth. A problem that Lee conveys as a fixation point that we see in no way can he balance it out as the sloppy man who is even more like Beom-mo than he’d care to admit. After the first death though we follow basically Man-su operating from all his paranoia over his wife as we see him follow to what was supposed to be a couples dance now is a broken situation where he walks in to see her dancing with her boss. Lee again deserves all the credit because for a man who can look so cool onscreen, Lee is gloriously uncool in his American classic naval officer outfit as he attempts to look cool on the dance floor which Lee performs to the point of beautiful hilarity. Before slinking out alone, leading to a bedroom confrontation between the two where Lee excels in showing really who deep down Man-su is in this ball of his own insecurities as he essentially acts out thinking he’s in the exact same situation as poor Beom-mo. Lee brings this sloppiness to every bit of his initial aggression with Mi-ri, who comes back with frustration to his secretiveness, anger to his behavior, but also warmth of a wife who doesn’t like seeing the man she does love in such a state. In this interaction Lee and Son are great in seeing the early days of their relationship in a way, where Mi-Ri was the “higher class” less attainable woman, and he the follow-up fool, in his mind who was led to drink and even violence. Lee presenting essentially the dormant pathetic nature of the man in every word, as he goes from confrontation, to this beaten down sorrow as Lee expresses the man we see deep down and paints an even stronger sense of the motivation of a man who doesn’t want to return to the jobless low class fool he had always perceived himself as.
One of the many elements, where Lee excels within the performance is showing the progression of Man-su with each victim, where we started with the man he connected too much with, we jump next to the next currently working as a shoe salesmen. Lee creates in these scenes a striking contrast between in his eyes a sense of familiarity to, but naturally easing back too much connection this time in presenting a calmer determination. Lee is outstanding in the way he essentially bridges the tone as we step from the hilarious moment of the complete fool, to the next step as the killer who isn’t all the way there. Lee still presents glints of sympathy in his interactions with the man, but now the presentation is less of himself and more almost like an executioner who is putting someone out of their misery…well that is until he actually has to do the killing and again we get a great subversion of presence where we see the attempt at the cold killer again is a little faulty, not as faulty, but still faulty. As Lee brings a shaky hand and slowly loses the cold conviction as he tries to cover up the man’s face, leading to a bit more physical comedy as shoots the man and Lee’s once again hilarious reaction is more of surprise than one of cold brutality. Lee successfully shows the push and pull within Man-su who is maybe “learning” a bit each time but not quite enough. Lee's performance as Man-su unexpectedly has to deal with his son being arrested for stealing cellphones right after this murder, where Lee’s silent reactions of guilt while he has no suspicion are perfect. There is a natural sense of change though as Man-su does not allow his son to be railroaded by the father of his son’s friend whose store they robbed together. Lee finally presents some calm cunning as he blackmails the man and we see some progression. Not all though as Lee beautifully fumbles around the police interview over the disappearance of two paper men. Lee finds just the right wrong rhythm throughout the conversation of his deliveries too quickly in some moments and then labored in others, painting himself so effectively as the lying guilty man only lucking out by the police not really having an idea of what the disappearances even mean yet.
Man-su has his final target now of Choi Seon-chul, who Man-su approaches for a drink right outside the man’s home. Lee again being so great into bringing us into the particular thinking of Man-su as he goes about the crime again, where Lee does so much with silence throughout this performance in this instance putting on the face of the interested coworker why also awaiting that sense of opportunity once again, while also still having a minor bit of uncertainty. An aspect that only changes when the man forces the sober Man-su to drink, and essentially Lee uses this as killer Popeye’s spinach as he depicts the change to the cold calculation fueled essentially by the alcohol. Where he first works through the pain by taking out his own tooth depicted with visceral perfection by Lee, to then accentuating a man fully with purpose and direction as he essentially leads Choi to his murder trap. The murder trap this time being a fully developed look of an accident by having Choi drink to unconsciousness, forcing him to choke on food, then leaving him as a drunken suffocated dead man. Lee now depicts finally the killer’s edge and precision within Man-su as he makes his most cold-blooded moment and we see the man embracing the choice fully. That isn’t to say Lee becomes the badass of many of his other roles, not in the least. Rather what he presents is the coldhearted nature we have fully seen develop in Man-su as progression of crimes. An element we see more distinctly in the second police interrogation, where Lee is still brilliantly playing the layers, but now instead of being the comedic sloppy fool, he’s more internalizing the questions about how much the police know and a more exact demeanor of someone more comfortable with his crimes.
Far more damning though is his final interactions with Mi-ri who has figured out his crimes and while horrified by them she does turn him in. Lee in the final sequence calls back to his first scene in an expert subversion of that. As there is now again a bit of a put on, but in a very different way. Where we saw someone deep down happy over his success who laid on too thickly to reinforce the idea to everyone, including himself, now it too seems forced but with a distinct change in Lee’s performance which is the lack of any soul. When he now hugs his wife, as he hugged his family before, instead of being the goofy dad overdoing things, we see the serial killer putting on a false face and accepting his dark achievement with a bone chilling smile as he’s fully separate from any sense of morality. Lee creates such a disturbing process in frankly losing the humor of Man-su from the sloppy guy failing at life, to the horrible human finding his success as he watches over a lifeless factory as the only human employee working with only machines. Lee delivers one masterful choice after another in delivering perhaps his crowning achievement as an actor. As he successfully purges what makes him such a captivating performer, to be captivating in a completely new way in giving flawless comedic performance, he manages to convincingly transform into the dark journey of a man fully losing his connection to humanity in order to preserve his dream. I love everything Lee does here, as while I knew Lee had a great performance in him as a guy killing the competition to achieve his goals, I never knew he had this specific performance that managed to both live up to the high expectation I had for it while also completely subverting it with one brilliant choice after another.
