The labour market is ruthless, but capitalism is crueller than the agony of a snakebite. After 25 years of devoted service, Man Soo is laid off from a paper factory. His employers had no other choice. In the past, he could hug his family and say he had achieved everything he had ever wanted. After a string of failed job searches, Man Soo is forced to give up middle-class comforts: sell his childhood home, cancel his daughter’s cello lessons, and his wife has to return to the workforce. He does not want to be the head of a family that, as the Korean proverb goes, ends up headless – Man Soo has a bold plan to get a job and reclaim his dignity.

Korean master Park has never been in finer directorial form. His daring works Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016), and Decision to Leave (2023) are cult classics of the 21st century, and his latest thriller, laced with biting satire, is among this year’s finest films. Based on The Axe (1997), a novel by Donald Westlake, this piece is a genre-shifting anatomy of “hunger games” and rage, building a social ladder parallel to the Oscar-winning Parasite (2019). For Park, the protagonist Man Soo (played by Squid Game (2021–2025) actor Lee Byung-hun) is a symbol of himself – just as the desperate character cannot see himself in any other job, the director himself cannot see himself anywhere but in cinema. And RIGA IFF pledges – the film contains not a single unnecessary death, not a wasted second, and not one redundant CV printed for yet another job interview.