Less than a month after Park Chan-wook‘s No Other Choice landed international distribution at Mubi and Neon in North America, the South Korean pic has a trailer and a release date.
The tense Korean-language video sees Squid Game star Lee Byung-hun under stress, constantly tapping his veiny forehead as he seeks answers to his problems. Guns, knives, lighters and cop cars are seen during a series of intense fast cuts. Both the trailer and a new poster reveal a September release date has been set.
Poster for ‘No Other Choice’
CJ ENM
The films follow Lee as middle-aged man Man-su, who embarks on a determined job hunt after being unexpectedly fired from the paper company that he worked for 25 years and eventually comes to a desperate decision. Son Yejin (The Last Princess) leads the cast alongside him.
Park Hee-soon (My Name), Lee Sung-min (The Spy Gone North), Yeom Hye-ran (The Glory), Cha Seung-won (Believer) and Yoo Yeon-seok (Mr. Sunshine) are cast.
No Other Choice is based on the horror novel The Ax by Donald E. Westlake, Park directed from a script written with Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar and Jahye Lee. Producers include Park and Back Jisun of Moho Film, as well as Michèle Ray Gavras and Alexandre Gavras of KG Productions. Miky Lee exec produced for CJ Group, with CJ ENM financing the project.
Last month, Mubi acquired all rights to Decision to Leave and Oldboy director Park’s film for Latin America, the UK, Ireland, Benelux (in concert with Cinéart), Spain, Turkey, India, Australia, New Zealand, and SAARC, whose member states are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. That news was preceded the day before by word of Neon taking rights for the U.S. and Canada.