Park Chan-wook on His "Bitter" Black Comedy, No Other Choice
Briefly

Park Chan-wook on His "Bitter" Black Comedy, No Other Choice
"At the narrative midpoint, pathetic protagonist Yoo Man-su ( Lee Byung-hun) - also a hobbying horticulturist with a bonsai mag subscription - arrives at the home of a man he deems a rival for one of the only paper jobs on the market. He wields a pistol concealed inside several oven gloves, intending to kill vinyl enthusiast Goo Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min) as a means of levelling the playing field."
"Beom-mo's himself is slumped in a helpless, drunken stupor in the midst of this farce, and has incorrectly identified Man-su as his wife's lover. He crumbles as he questions whether her infidelity is the result of his own failure to secure a new paper-mill job. The scene erupts into a melodramatic spectacle - as two anguished men cry and shout about their bad backs and expert credentials until wayward wife Lee A-ra (Yeom Hye-ran) drops a line that encapsulates the film to a tee:"
Yoo Man-su, a laid-off paper-mill veteran and hobbyist horticulturist, seeks one remaining paper job and confronts a perceived rival, Goo Beom-mo. Armed with a pistol hidden in oven gloves, Man-su intends murder but falters after discovering Beom-mo's wife's infidelity and feeling sudden empathy. Beom-mo, drunk and convinced Man-su is his wife's lover, crumbles and blames his unemployment for domestic failure. The confrontation escalates into a melodramatic spectacle of two men arguing about bad backs and credentials, culminating in Lee A-ra's line: 'Losing your job is not the problem; the problem is how you deal with it.'
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