Park Chan-wook, master of black comedy, returns to Venice

Director Park Chan-wook poses for photographers on the red carpet for the film 'No Other Choice' during the 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/Invision/AP)

It took 20 years for South Korean director Park Chan-wook to return to the Venice Film Festival -- and the same length of time for the veteran cineaste to make his latest film.

The director of “Old Boy” - which thrust him into the international spotlight in 2004 after winning the Grand Prix at Cannes - will premiere his latest feature, “No Other Choice” on the Lido on Friday night.

The thriller, about a veteran paper company employee who is laid off and decides to kill off potential competitors for a new job, is among 21 films in competition for Venice’s top award, the Golden Lion.

Ahead of the premiere, Park told a press conference that during the 20 years it took to get the film made, he talked up the plot wherever he went.

“No matter where I went I told it, no matter what country, what culture, they would all relate to the story. What’s interesting is they always said ‘Oh, that’s such a timely story,’” Park told reporters.

“Anyone who is out there trying to make a living in the current modern capitalist society, we all harbour that deep fear of employment insecurity,” he said.

But despite the serious social commentary in the film about workers and capitalism, howls of laughter filled the theatre at a press screening over the ever-escalating hurdles the protagonist must overcome.

Vengeance and forgiveness

Park was last in Venice in 2005, with “Lady Vengeance”, the final instalment in his “Vengeance Trilogy” which delved into the dark recesses of the human experience. It won two awards.

The director with a strong appetite for vengeance and forgiveness - whose violent or erotic films are not afraid to shock - won a best director award at Cannes three years ago for “Decision to Leave”, a romantic thriller.

The master of black comedy has become a major influence on the South Korean film industry.

His bloody revenge thriller “Oldboy” followed a man imprisoned without explanation in a room for 15 years before being released to search for his tormentor.

The film is seen as having paved the the way for black comedy “Parasite” by fellow Korean Bong Joon Ho, which in 2019 won in Cannes and a year later the Academy Award, the first time a non-English language feature has won Best Picture.

“Only by recognising a person’s darker desires and properly examining their existence will you know what human beings are made of,” Park told the Busan International Film Festial in 2021,

Having studied philosophy at Sogang University in Seoul, the soft-spoken filmmaker is a great lover of literature, especially Zola and Philip Roth.

His 2009 vampire film “Thirst” was an adaptation of Zola’s “Therese Raquin,” and his lesbian romance “The Handmaiden” of 2016 is based on the novel “Fingersmith” by the British author Sarah Waters.

“No Other Choice” is based on the 1997 novel “The Ax” by Donald E. Westlake.

Park has worked extensively in television, notably the English-language mini-series “The Little Drummer Girl”, adapted from John Le Carré’s novel, and last year’s HBO series “The Sympathizer” about a North Vietnamese spy.

By Alexandria Sage.