Park Chan-wook on Taking 20 Years to Make No Other Choice and Reuniting with Lee Byung-hun
No Other Choice Director Park Chan-wook talks about absurdity, deviations from the source material, and reuniting with Lee Byung-hun.
Park Chan-wook, the director of the Golden Globe-nominated film No Other Choice, sits down with Rotten Tomatoes Awards Editor Jacqueline Coley on the Awards Tour Podcast to discuss the film’s long journey, its use of absurdity, and how he has grown as a filmmaker alongside actor Lee Byung-hun.
Be sure to check out No Other Choice, streaming on Fandango at Home, and we’ll see you on the next stop of the Awards Tour!
Jacqueline Coley for Rotten Tomatoes: I would love for you to talk about the two-decade journey to bring this to the screen, and I’d be curious for you to tell us ‘why now,’ and what was the thing that changed the most from when you first started contemplating this project to the final result that we saw.
Park Chan-wook: It’s been 20 years since I first read the book and wanted to adapt the film, but it’s actually been 16 years since I started doing the work for it. The reason it took so long is because I initially wanted to make this into an American film like the novel, but I couldn’t find the right level of investment for it. Not to say I found zero investment. It was always what they offered was always slightly below the level of budget that I wanted. So I couldn’t take it. But ultimately it just turned out to be a Korean film. And I had the opportunity to work with the amazing actors that you just saw on the screen. So in the end, I’m very grateful to the American studios who never gave me the budget that I wanted.
No Other Choice is now streaming on Fandango at Home
Thumbnail image by NEON (2025)
