Park Chan-Wook assists in the first hand to a Korean cinema crisis.
Korean cinema faces its steepest slowdown in two decades, the nationwide admissions plunging only 40.7 million in the first half of 2025, against 62.9 million a year earlier and on the right track to fall below the symbolic annual bar of 100 million for the first time since 2004, excluding Pandemic years. A shortage of domestic blockbusters, growing competition from streaming platforms and consumption belt is the crisis drivers, which threatens to upset one of the most dynamic theatrical markets in Asia. The industry is currently faced with an existential threat to its theatrical culture formerly madness.
“I think it’s not so much the cinema crisis. It is a cinemas crisis,” says Park Variety At the Busan International Film Festival, where his latest thriller “No Another Choice” was the opening film. “But I also think, in turn, the cinemas crisis is in fact, in fact, the cinema crisis.”
He adds: “The public all arrives in front of a huge screen where technology is standardized, you are almost locked up in this dark and dark room. You cannot leave, you cannot take a break, and you are completely cut with any kind of temptations or internal or external elements. I cannot imagine the cinema something other than this experience.”
But Park expresses the hope that “no other choice”, featuring the stars of the list A Lee Byung-Hun and his son Ye-Jin, “could play even a small role in bringing her the public who left the theaters to go home”.
The exploration by the film of despair and automation by the film could not be more appropriate. Lee embodies Man-Su, a specialist in the manufacture of casual paper that uses the murder in series to eliminate its competitors for a single job opening, to discover that the position exists to supervise AI tests.
“This is a story about the desires of today’s middle class,” explains Park. “Despite the type of difficulty you might encounter, it’s extremely difficult, they Deny to accept the fall in the current state of life that you have maintained so far. »»
The director establishes uncomfortable parallels between the fate of his protagonist and broader work concerns. “After eliminating all of his human competitors, the position he earns following this, how long will this position last? Is everything in vain? ” Park says, noting that in the final scene of the film, the Automated System of Lights of AI Pushes Man–Su Out of the factory. “Is the Man–sud the fight everything in vain?” Is it all devoid of meaning? ”
Park also addresses his recent expulsion from the Writers Guild of America, as well as the co-author Don McKellar, for having written during the 2023 strike while working on HBO’s “The Sympathizer”.
“We did not think or considered that we were writing during the strike,” explains Park. “I am not only the writer, but I am also the director and the producer, and there are certain things that had to be done, you know, the sharing of ideas that are not acts of real writing. So I think it is regrettable that he was interpreted differently. ”
Despite the controversy, Park underlines his support for the mission of the Union. “However, that does not mean that we disagree with the mission or the goal of WGA strike. We understand perfectly and we also fully agree and support their actions, and this remains motionless today. ”
By thinking about the history of 30 years of Biff, Park reflects on the transforming role of the festival in the expansion of the horizons for the Korean public.
“For a very long time, [for] Korean moviegoers, when you think of a film, it was generally focused on Korean films or American films, and in particular, Hollywood films on a large scale, “he said.” When the Busan International Festival was created 30 years ago, I think it didn’t really know. “”
The director notes that the festival helped the public “to realize how much we were to be able to really understand what people who are racial and geographically very close to us, what they think and how the experience of this film can have an impact.”
“No Other Choice” offers a stellar set, notably Park Hee-Soon, Lee Sung-Min, Yeom Hye-Ran and Cha Seung-Won alongside Lee and his son. The film previously contributed to Venice Film Festival and is produced by Moho Film and Kg Productions.
