Director Park Chan-wook's black comedy No Other Choice opens Busan film festival

BUSAN, South Korea - Celebrated director Park Chan-wook’s star-studded black comedy, No Other Choice, opened Asia’s biggest film festival on Sept 17, which is launching its first fully-fledged competition lineup as South Korea projects its soft power worldwide.

The 30th edition of Busan International Film Festival (Biff) arrives after the global success of critical works exploring South Korean culture and experiences, such as movie Parasite (2019), television series Squid Game (2021 to 2025) and animated film KPop Demon Hunters (2025).

Stars and filmmakers – including Thai singer Lisa of K-pop girl group Blackpink and Park – walked the red carpet under dazzling lights for the opening ceremony, as excited Busan citizens cheered.

The festival, which has long focused on emerging talents in the region, is undergoing a revamp in 2025, launching its first major competition section featuring 14 titles – including four South Korean pictures.

Seasoned Chinese director Zhang Lu’s Gloaming In Luomu and Taiwanese actress Shu Qi’s directorial debut, Girl, are in also competition and will be judged by juries headed by South Korean film-maker Na Hong-jin.

The latest edition “sought not only to further expand its long-standing role as a platform for discovering emerging Asian talent, but also to effectively showcase the works of acclaimed Asian masters”, festival director Jung Han-seok told AFP.

Programme director Karen Park said the lineup was designed to honour Asian cinema in the way it wishes to be understood.

“I believe it is meaningful that an Asian film festival, which understands Asian culture and its linguistic and historical contexts, evaluates Asian films and offers its own perspectives on them,” she said.

‘Staking my life on it’

Park Chan-wook - best known for the film Oldboy (2003) which thrust him into the international spotlight in 2004 - returned to Busan with No Other Choice, which won acclaim at the recent Venice Film Festival.

Based on American writer Donald Westlake’s novel The Ax (1997), the film follows a desperate laid-off worker in the paper manufacturing industry who decides to kill off potential competitors for a new job.

Park, 62, said he could relate to the protagonist, even though he has little knowledge of the industry.

“People don’t usually think of papermaking as something immensely important or extraordinary, but the protagonists say it is their very life itself,” the director told reporters ahead of the opening ceremony.

“Films can be seen as something that do not necessarily provide any great practical help in life - they might be just two hours of entertainment. And yet, like them, I pour everything I have into this work, staking my entire life on it.”

No Other Choice stars South Korea’s top actors – Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun and Crash Landing On You (2019 to 2020) actress Son Ye-jin – in the lead.

The opening film marks a shift from the choice of Netflix’s period war drama Uprising in 2024, which drew criticism in South Korea’s cinema community given Biff’s tradition of championing theatrical films.

Park said his film also touches on contemporary anxieties over artificial intelligence, reflecting its broader theme of the job market, while actor Lee – the sole emcee of the opening ceremony – noted that cinemas as a space are “facing even greater challenges” than film-making itself.

Future of Asian cinema

The edition in 2025 features 241 official entries from 64 countries, including 90 world premieres.

Among them is Hana Korea, a North Korean refugee drama with Pachinko (2022 to present) star Kim Min-ha, and The People Upstairs, from South Korean actor-director Ha Jung-woo, which centres on the issue of noisy neighbours.

At the opening ceremony, Taiwanese actress-filmmaker Sylvia Chang received the Camellia Award, which honours remarkable women in film, while Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi was named Asian Filmmaker of the Year.

Life as a working mother can be “very hard for women”, a visibly emotional Chang, 72, told the audience.

“But I was more involved with writing scripts, directing and producing, and the challenges became my drive.”

As for emerging talent, there has been a “wave of exciting new voices emerging” in Asia, “especially in short films where sensitive themes are tackled with remarkable freedom”, said Mr Park Sung-ho, one of Biff’s programmers.

“In much of Asia, freedom of expression is still not widely guaranteed, yet within shorts, young directors have revealed their individuality in striking ways, offering reasons to feel optimistic about the future of Asian cinema,” he told AFP.

Asia’s celebrated auteurs - South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho and China’s Jia Zhangke - were also among the guests, along with French actress Juliette Binoche, American star Milla Jovovich, KPop Demon Hunters director Maggie Kang and Hollywood auteur Michael Mann. AFP