Squid Game Sensation’s Latest Film Wows Critics With Near-Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score

Okay, let’s cut right to the chase: Park Chan-wook’s new movie, No Other Choice, is already racking up some seriously high praise, and I’m not talking about just a niche group of film nerds. This thing is hovering at near-perfect scores on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics and regular viewers basically in complete agreement—something you almost never see, by the way.

The Movie, the Director, and the Numbers

So here’s what’s happening: No Other Choice is Park Chan-wook’s latest dive into satirical dark comedy. You might know Park for classics like Oldboy and The Handmaiden, but this time, he’s mixing brutal humor with his usual stylish direction. If you recognize the lead, that’s probably because Lee Byung-hun—yep, the guy from Squid Game—is at the center of it all.

Let’s talk numbers because they’re kind of wild:

• Tomatometer: 97%
• Audience score: 95%

Those scores aren’t flukes—the movie debuted at the Venice International Film Festival, and audiences there gave it a nine-minute standing ovation. That’s a long time to clap for anything, let alone a movie with a jet-black sense of humor.

What’s the Movie Actually About?

Here’s the plot, which is actually based on Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax (a pretty twisted source). Lee Byung-hun plays Man-soo, a guy who knows his way around the paper business—until, that is, his company gets snapped up by an American firm and he finds himself out of a job. After over a year of job rejections, things start to go off the rails for Man-soo. Basically, he decides the only way to get back into the game is to literally remove his rivals from the running. Yes, it’s as dark as it sounds, and yes, Park Chan-wook is exactly the director who’d know how to make that both deeply funny and genuinely harrowing.

The Critics Are Kind of Ecstatic

When you see reviews coming in this strong, it’s worth taking notice, even if—let’s be honest—film critics aren’t always on the same wavelength as everyone else. Here’s how the big names are describing it:

'A brutal story for brutal times, one steeped in corrosive humor and delivered with Park’s customary flair.' — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Rolling Stone’s David Fear basically says the movie’s jokes are funny until you realize you probably shouldn’t be laughing. Justin Chang from The New Yorker is huge on Lee Byung-hun’s performance, saying the guy pulls off a kind of sad-sack slapstick that somehow makes the character’s breakdown even more believable. Ty Burr at The Washington Post summed it up by pointing out that, sure, there are 'winners' in this movie, but, really, nobody gets out unscathed. BBC’s Nicholas Barber just straight up calls it Park’s funniest film—and his most humane, which is not the kind of thing you expect to read about such a violent comedy.

Why This Matters (and Why You’ll Hear About It)

If you’re used to seeing artsy movies get critical love but zero mainstream traction, this one’s a bit different. The festival buzz, the scores, the name recognition with Lee Byung-hun—this could be the Park Chan-wook movie that hits big on both sides of the aisle. And it’s not often you see the reviewer crowd and regular moviegoers high-fiving each other about anything these days.