No Other Choice

Park Chan-wook probably hit peak cultural clout with 2003’s Oldboy. No Other Choice reminds us yet again that he’s still here, and has been knocking out good films ever since. If The Handmaiden and Decision to Leave and a clutch of others don’t quite get the coverage that Oldboy and the other two films of the “Vengeance” trilogy did, that’s more our problem than his. In fact Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance would better be described as the “Sympathy” trilogy, since that’s their currency. But in the crazy-busy world of the attention economy Vengeance sells and Sympathy comes across as a bit wafty, so Vengeance it is. Which brings us … Read more