Park Chan-wook on how Looney Tunes influenced the cartoonish comedy of No Other Choice • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

Not only are you satirizing the folly of capitalism, but you’re also satirizing other social issues, such as the nuclear family and traditional gender roles. Could you talk about the futility of Man-su’s quest to be the “perfect” husband and father, and how it ironically transforms him into a serial killer?
Man-su has lived a foolish life where he believes that making money at his job equates to his entire existence, and that to make money equates to being a father and a husband. So, to him, losing his job means he’s become worthless as a man. He’s a very pitiful person who is stuck in a small box where he believes that a husband or a father has to act a certain way.

What’s interesting is that as he goes through his murders, in that process, he regains his self-confidence. He’s fully aware that what he’s doing is wrong, but at the same time, with each success, his self-confidence grows bigger. So when his son is arrested by the police, he actively tries to resolve the situation. At this point, this was after two successful murders, so he’s actively involved: he’s telling his son what he should be saying to the police, and he even threatens his friend Wonno [Kim Hyung-mook] to resolve the situation.

But the solution that he comes up with is that he encourages his son to make a false statement to the police, which was not a very educational method. He’s using the self-confidence he’s gained from murders and resolving the situation by telling his son to make a false statement. His son and his wife, who are unaware of anything at this point, are completely enamored by the father’s cool new attitude, because he comes off as very manly. I think that goes to show how the film offers a commentary on this false sense of masculinity.

Yes! As you say, his performance is so pitiful to the point of being hilarious. Lee Byung-hun has said that he didn’t realize he was giving such a slapstick performance until reviews started coming out, but you’ve said that you were influenced by cartoons and animation, so you must have realized all along. I would love to hear more about how cartoons may have influenced this film.
I never necessarily asked my actors to watch the cartoons together, but we all grew up with them and we saw them when we were younger. Naturally, we harbor a lot of love towards that medium. So, in the long shot where people are screaming as they’re running away, or in that scene where the three people are trying to grab the gun under the cabinet and they’re crawling on the floor and the camera looks down on them, scenes like that are very reminiscent of cartoons. It reminds all of us of our younger days when we were growing up with them. That’s what elicits innocent laughter when watching scenes like that. It’s reminiscent of not only cartoons, but silent films like Charlie Chaplin’s.