Award-winning studio NEON announced today that it has boarded the North American rights to No Other Choice, the next film in the formidable oeuvre of acclaimed Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (Decision to Leave, The Handmaiden, Oldboy). Lee Byung-hun (I Saw the Devil, Squid Game 1&2) and Son Yejin (The Last Princess, A Moment to Remember) are set to star as husband and wife alongside an ensemble cast including Park Hee-soon (My Name), Lee Sung-min (The Spy Gone North), Yeom Hye-ran (The Glory), Cha Seung-won (Believer 1&2), and Yoo Yeon-seok (Mr. Sunshine).
No Other Choice is produced by Park Chan-wook and Back Jisun of Moho Film and Michèle Ray Gavras and Alexandre Gavras of KG Production, and executive produced by Miky Lee of CJ Group. CJ ENM financed the project, which is currently in post-production. The deal was negotiated by Jason Wald on behalf of NEON with Namyoung Kim at CJ ENM. The acquisition marks a return pairing of NEON and CJ ENM following their collaboration on the historic release of Parasite.
Following NEON’s recent Academy Award® Best Picture wins with Anora and Parasite, and its six-year streak of winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, NEON will gear up the title for an anticipated awards run.
No Other Choice, Park’s 12th feature, is based on the 1997 novel The Ax by Donald Westlake. It follows a man (Lee) who is abruptly laid off by the paper company where he worked tirelessly for many years. He grows increasingly desperate in his hunt for new work, eventually he comes to a certain decision.
Park Chan-wook is one of the world’s most visionary and singular directors. For his last feature Decision to Leave, he won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. He is known for films such as Joint Security Area and Oldboy, with which he broke into the mainstream global audience and received commercial and critical acclaim, Thirst, and The Handmaiden for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language. Most recently, he co-directed the HBO miniseries “The Sympathizer,” starring Robert Downey, Jr.
Lee Byung-hun is a South Korean actor who has worked on many projects of different genres, including Park Chan-wook’s Joint Security Area, Kim Jee-woon’s action films A Bittersweet Life and I Saw the Devil, Inside Men, two G.I. Joe films, Red 2, Terminator Genisys, and The Magnificent Seven.He also starred in Netflix’s successful series “Squid Game.”
Son Yejin is a South Korean actress best known for her work in popular romance films The Classic, A Moment to Remember, The Last Princess, and My Wife Got Married. She also has extensive TV credits including “Crash Landing on You,” “Something in the Rain,” “Alone in Love,” and “Summer Scent.” She is known as Korea’s “Nation’s First Love.”
No Other Choice marks NEON and Park Chan-wook’s second collaboration following the successful re-release of Oldboy in theaters and a limited deluxe edition 4K UHD Blu-ray, including a 68-page casebound book and over 18 hours of bonus material, to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2023.
NEON is behind Sean Baker’s Anora starring Mikey Madison which recently took home five Academy Awards® including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress and its theatrical release opened to the highest per-screen average of 2024.
In Cannes, NEON earned its sixth consecutive Palme d’Or win with Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, which the company acquired at the festival, and won a total of 6 awards across all films including Grand Prix for Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value. Also in Cannes, NEON debuted Julia Ducournau’s Alpha, Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5, and Michael Angelo Covino’s Splitsville starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona which NEON also produced. The company acquired North American rights to Sirât from Oliver Laxe; The Secret Agent from acclaimed writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho; and Ugo Bienvenu’s animated feature Arco with Natalie Portman.
