Squid Game Star’s New Movie Gets Almost 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

The latest release from acclaimed filmmaker Park Chan-wook, featuring Squid Game star Lee Byung-hun, is sitting just shy of perfection on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics and audiences clearly on the same page.

No Other Choice reviews lead to excellent Rotten Tomatoes score

The 2025 satirical dark comedy thriller, No Other Choice, from celebrated director Park Chan-wook, is living up to its high expectations. The movie, which stars Lee Byung-hun, has a stellar 97% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s paired with a 95% audience score.

This critical consensus is in line with the movie’s powerful impact. The film had its world premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, where it received a nine-minute standing ovation. Now, the stellar No Other Choice Rotten Tomatoes score is backed by amazing reviews from top critics.

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times calls it “a brutal story for brutal times, one steeped in corrosive humor and delivered with Park’s customary flair.” Rolling Stone‘s David Fear wrote, “It’s the sort of parting joke that makes the chuckles catch in your throat.” The performance of Lee Byung-hun is also a major focal point. Justin Chang of The New Yorker observes, “Lee throws himself into all of it with a sad-sack slapstick energy that never undercuts — and, remarkably, even enhances — the psychological acuity of his acting.”

Furthermore, Ty Burr from The Washington Post quipped, “There are winners in ‘No Other Choice.’ But as Park makes clear in the film’s quietly devastating final images, they’ve won at a cost that hollows the soul. No translation necessary.” Nicholas Barber from the BBC earlier summed it up, “No Other Choice Isn’t just Park’s funniest film. But his most humane, too – and that’s quite something for a comedy as violent as this one.”

Adapted from Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax, No Other Choice follows Man-soo. A paper industry expert who loses his job after his company is bought out by Americans. After more than a year of failed job searches, Man-soo becomes increasingly desperate. He ultimately decides to eliminate his competition to secure employment and preserve his way of life.

Source: Comingsoon.net