Yeom Hye-ran defies expectations in ‘No Other Choice’

Actor Yeom Hye-ran said her latest role in Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” has allowed her to discover sides of herself she had never explored before.

In the film, Yeom plays A-ra, the wife of Beom-mo (Lee Sung-min), a once-proud man who spirals into lethargy after losing his job. A-ra points out that the real problem lies not in his unemployment, but in how he responds to it.

In a recent interview, Yeom recalled how Park drew on his own past for that scene. “The director once shared that after making ‘Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance’ (2002), he was crushed by a sense of failure. His wife told him, ‘The problem isn’t failure itself, but how you deal with it.’ That experience shaped A-ra’s line,” she said.

Although she had long admired Park, Yeom admitted she was initially intimidated by his invitation to join the cast.

“I’ve never been good with violent films, and some of his works scared me,” she said. “But even the smallest choices, like whether a line should use ‘this’ or ‘that,’ showed his meticulousness. Working with him sharpened all my senses.”

Yeom also credited the role of A-ra with revealing an unexpected sensuality. She cited a scene where A-ra sucks venom from Beom-mo’s leg after a snake bite.

“When I first read it, I thought, ‘This is sexy.’ I never imagined I had that in me, but A-ra brought it out,” she said. Though terrified of snakes, she was relieved when Park reassured her that the sequence would be done with CGI.

She praised her co-stars, calling Lee Byung-hun “an actor who can make the unimaginable real” and describing Lee Sung-min as “someone I have always admired and wanted to learn from.” She recalled marveling at his ability to make even a phone conversation scene feel alive.

“No Other Choice” was invited to the competition section of the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. Yeom said the festival reminded her of cinema’s power.

“Seeing people line up in the morning and compete for tickets — it was moving,” she said. “It made me realize how precious it is to laugh together in a theater.”

Looking back, she called the experience a dream fulfilled. “I never thought I’d be in a Park Chan-wook film or walk the Venice red carpet. Years from now, I’ll look back and think, ‘That was when I was happiest.’”

The film, which opened in Korea on Sept. 24, surpassed 1 million cumulative moviegoers on Sept. 28, just five days after its release, according to distributor CJ ENM.

The pace is comparable to this year’s top-grossing film “My Daughter Is a Zombie,” which reached 1 million admissions on its fourth day and has drawn 5.62 million moviegoers to date.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.