Socie-economic satire doesn’t come more savage — or relevant — than this audacious saga.
South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s new film is a heady blend of drama, real-world touchpoints, burlesque and — sometimes quite abruptly — macabre dark humor. Its arrival now is felicitously timely, at a moment when worldwide jobs in all social strata are being replaced by AI, leaving veritable armies of displaced and disgruntled people in its wake.
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| Having finally worked up the courage to confront his first target, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun, left) is startled when the pathetic Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min) fails to take him seriously. |
(Choi is a genuine cello talent. It shows.)
As a longstanding and highly respected employee of the papermaking company Solar — recipient, among other honors, of the “Pulp Man of the Year” award — Man-su is well-paid, and was able to purchase the beloved home in which he grew up. He has added an adjacent greenhouse, where he frequently pursues his hobby of bonsai crafting.
Life is good.
Until, suddenly, it isn’t. An American multinational buys Solar and abruptly fires much of the company workforce, including Man-su.
Although he vows to regain similar paper industry employment within three months, he has an inherent flaw. During interviews, he has no good response when asked to admit his “prime weakness” (an intriguing question that all business hiring entities should consider).
The additional, obvious problem is that he’s merely one of many similarly highly qualified former supervisors vying for the same rapidly dwindling job openings in this shrinking industry.
Thirteen months pass, with no significant luck; Man-su has done no better than menial, low-paying retail work. Mi-ri finally acknowledges the obvious, insists that the family must cut back, and confronts her husband with the fact that they’ll need to sell his cherished home. This notion, he cannot endure.
Man-su’s resulting emotional agony turns the next potential interview — at Moon Paper — into a humiliating experience. But then a desperate plan emerges. He establishes a fake company — Red Pepper Paper — and solicits appropriately high-ranking job applications; he’s therefore able to identify the few similarly unemployed candidates with credentials better than his own.
If they were to … ah … somehow disappear, Man-su’s chances of securing the Moon Paper position would increase significantly.
But does this family man have what it takes, to be a cold-blooded killer?
It’s intriguing to note that this film’s script — by Park, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar and Jahye Lee — is a reasonably faithful adaptation of American crime writer Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel, The Ax. Its protagonist, Burke Devore, spent most of his life overseeing the polymer paper production line for Halcyon Mills, in Fairbourne, Conn. After being downsized, and out of work for two years — at 51, too young for Social Security and Medicare — he concocts this same scheme to identify and eliminate his likely job competitors.
(2025 was a noteworthy year for established American crime writers. Spike Lee starred Denzel Washington in Highest 2 Lowest, an admittedly unsatisfying adaptation of Ed McBain’s 1959 87th Precinct novel King’s Ransom, and Park followed with this much more engaging riff on Westlake’s novel.)
It’s important to recognize the psychological distinctions here. Westlake’s protagonist is the now-clichéd Angry White Guy, motivated solely by rage and disenfranchisement; Man-su, in great contrast, is driven by humiliation and fear.
Park coaxes a marvelously subtle performance from Lee, who delivers a wealth of emotions: initial bewilderment, then resolve, despair, desperation and (to a degree) rash cunning. Watching all of this emerge is fascinating; we’re never sure, from one moment to the next, what Lee’s nuanced expressions will reveal.
The tone of Park’s film shifts significantly, as we slide into the second act, with Man-su’s hair-brained attempt to kill his first competitor: the pathetic Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), drunk, similarly unemployed, and unaware that his wife, A-ra (Yeom Hye-ran) is cheating on him. The resulting fracas is burlesque insanity, with Man-su — thanks to Lee’s emotional shading — genuinely horrified by what he’s attempting, so ineptly.
But this is just the beginning. Park shifts into an increasingly unpredictable roller-coaster, which veers between grimly unsettling behavior, macabre humor and quietly intimate moments between Man-su and Mi-ri.
As the latter, Son navigates a similarly broad emotional arc: initially a devoted and attentive soul mate; then a calm, take-charge facilitator of reality; then a worried wife who fears the worst; and, finally … something else.
Not everything works. A protracted costumed dance party sequence, and its confrontational aftermath between Man-su and Mi-ri, feels contrived. An escapade involving Si-one and his best friend comes wholly out of left field, given that Park has given no indication of the boy’s character, up to this point. More to the point, Man-su solves this problem with a surprise revelation that begs all manner of questions.
Both sidebars feel like padding to bolster this film’s somewhat overlong 139-minute running time.
That said, numerous other moments are audaciously successful, starting with Man-su’s first murderous attempt, involving a heavy potted plant. This bit’s payoff, with the plant’s owner, is low-key hilarious; we can but laugh.
I also love what occurs when two police inspectors get involved in this expanding quagmire, with their “ingenious” assumptions and theories.
Park also excels at grimly horrific tableaus, such as Man-su’s ghastly solution to a body disposal problem. A running subplot involving his increasingly painful toothache also climaxes in a graphic, frenzied act much worse than what William Goldman did to Babe Levy, in 1974’s Marathon Man.
As for the eventual outcome of Man-su’s vendetta — and, we must admit, he gets better at it — Park delivers a final ironic twist that speaks even more directly to the soul-crushing threat facing today’s workforce.
This is an ultimate warning and cautionary tale. We’ll look back on this moment, and marvel at Park’s prescience.
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