In case you hadn’t heard, it’s tough out there for a working man. Even the most dedicated employees, like paper company manager Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) in No Other Choice, can find themselves “let go” when corporate consolidation makes them redundant to their new multinational capitalist masters. As Man-su tells his firm’s American purchasers—or tries to before he’s brusquely dismissed—another way to describe losing one’s job is “getting the axe,” a casually murderous linguistic acknowledgment of the life-and-death stakes involved. A year passes, and Man-su’s family is feeling the pinch of his reduced circumstances. Downsizing means the loss of his daughter’s cello lessons, his son’s beloved Netflix subscription, and both of the family dogs (“We have too many mouths to feed”).

Desperate, Man-su adopts a cruelly efficient strategy for obtaining employment on a par with his previous career. He places a fake advertisement for a position demanding a resume matching his, then sets out to bump off all the potential competitors who answer it. This dog-eat-dog approach comes from Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, adapted here by director Park Chan-wook into an unexpectedly comic tale that could easily swipe the title of Park’s 2002 feature Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. It’s certainly not the first movie to mine dark humor from the mechanization and alienation of labor under capitalism—there are visual nods to Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, and Westlake’s book was previously adapted by the leftist French filmmaker Costa-Gavras—but it’s probably the first in which a concrete flowerpot is employed as a potential murder weapon.

There’s a glorious simplicity to the movie’s morality. If the bosses can treat those beneath them as interchangeable and less than human, then why shouldn’t the proletariat do the same in pursuit of its own needs? Of course, Man-su’s cutthroat campaign is misdirected from a class-consciousness perspective, but it’s still hard to blame the guy, especially when he’s played by the veteran Lee, who got his first big breakthrough in Park’s 2000 feature Joint Security Area. (American viewers may recognize Lee as Storm Shadow in the G.I. Joe films, while his voice may sound familiar to the zillions of KPop Demon Hunters fans out there.) Perhaps to distinguish No Other Choice from other Work Is Hell flicks, Park gives things a discordantly wacky spin at times, which doesn’t always work. Pitch-black humor has been a staple of his work, from Oldboy to The Handmaiden, but it’s usually slier and more situational instead of the quasi-slapstick shenanigans that ensue here. Made with Park’s typically astute eye and graceful camerawork, though, it’s still an entertaining poke in the eye to our investor-class overlords. 3.5/5 (Now playing at Cinema 21 and the Hollywood Theatre [some screenings in 35mm]; opens Jan. 9 at Living Room Theaters; opens Jan. 16 at additional locations)

Visually spectacular enough that its occasional narrative incoherence doesn’t matter, Chinese director Bi Gan’s Resurrection is a mind-melting treat for the senses. Set in a dystopian world in which most of humanity has achieved immortality at the cost of its ability to dream, it unfolds over five discreet chapters. In each, our unnamed protagonist (Jackson Yee), one of a small number of rebels called Deliriants, moves from one imagined world to another while being pursued by the dream-destroying Other Ones. Each of these worlds corresponds to a period in both Chinese and cinema history: one’s a sepia-toned silent melodrama, another is a noirish thriller, and so on. And as the Deliriant continues to dream, bringing him closer and closer to death, he becomes a symbol of film, that eternally on-the-verge-of-extinction artform itself. If all this sounds a bit hoity-toity and obscure, it is. The more you’re willing to immerse yourself in Resurrection’s sights and sounds, relax and float downstream in its oneiric waters, the more you’ll pick up what Bi, China’s most ambitious filmmaker, is putting down. His last film, Long Day’s Journey into Night, concludes with an hour-long 3D sequence shot in one continuous take, so frankly you’re getting off easy here. Ambitious (to say the least), impeccably crafted, and truly unique, Resurrection demands the theatrical experience. 4/5 (Now playing at Living Room Theaters and Eastport Plaza)

What if cooties were real? That’s the terrifying question faced by 13-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck), the new arrival at a water polo summer camp in 2003 and the lens through which we experience The Plague. Writer-director Charlie Polinger’s feature debut has drawn comparisons to The Lord of the Flies for its portrayal of pubescent males engaged in merciless rivalry and targeted ostracization, here of a fellow attendee, Eli (Kenny Rasmussen). Eli’s chunky, quiet, and prone to morbid stunts—in other words, the perfect Piggie. Adding another layer to its metaphorical cake, The Plague also saddles Eli with a nasty skin rash that his tormentors allege is contagious. Don’t touch Eli or you’ll end up just like him. Ben, as any halfway sensitive kid would, feels bad for Eli and doesn’t believe for a minute that his “plague” is contagious—at least at first. But conformity and acceptance are powerful lures, and Polinger doesn’t flinch from the implications of his main character’s desire to fit in. The director also captures the reality of teenage behavior, as cruelty masks a vulnerability that’s only enhanced by the exposure of the boys’ still-developing bodies during the endless swimming pool sessions overseen by a well-meaning but fairly clueless coach (Joel Edgerton). The rest of the young cast is impeccable, and the semi-autobiographical nature of Polinger’s screenplay shows in their uncomfortably realistic dialogue. In a challenging lead role, Blunck really shines, as he did as another complicated character in Griffin in Summer, a film I caught at this year’s Bend Film Festival but which didn’t get the theatrical release it deserved. (It’s streaming on Hulu now.) Between these two movies, I’m ready to anoint Blunck as a future star. 3.5/5 (multiple locations)

A likely Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature, The Perfect Neighbor looks at first like just another Netflix true-crime saga. Constructed almost entirely from police body camera and other surveillance footage, it takes a deep dive into the events surrounding the 2023 shooting death of a Black woman, Ajike Owens, by the White woman, Susan Lorincz, who had been a thorn in the side of her entire Florida neighborhood for years. Lorincz would frequently call the cops to complain about Owens’ and others’ children, and the dispute escalated from there. Veteran director Geeta Gandbhir and editor Viridiana Lieberman masterfully build tension, capturing Lorincz’s increasingly unhinged behavior as well as the workaday de-escalation tactics used by the increasingly harried local cops, who actually come off well. This being Florida (of course), much of the suspense following Ajike’s death is whether Lorincz will escape prosecution under the state’s infamous Stand Your Ground law. A simple Google search will reveal how things turned out, but The Perfect Neighbor provides context and humanity to the sort of story too often reduced to headlines. 3/5 (Screens Thursday, Jan. 8, at the Tomorrow Theater)

Also this week

If You Should Leave Before Me: A couple (Shane P. Allen and John Wilcox) work as chaperones for the newly deceased in this metaphysical independent drama from directors J. Markus Anderson and Boyd Anderson, who will be in attendance at the film’s Portland premiere. It previously screened at the Raindance Film Festival and received a positive review from Film Threat. (Friday, Clinton St.)

Lupin the 3rd: The Immortal Bloodline: “Lupin and his gang locate a deserted island for treasure but get into a battle for survival with the island’s mysterious residents.” (Sunday through Tuesday, multiple theaters)

Start Fresh Film Festival: A component of the two-week Start Fresh PDX, this program of three short films includes Justin Boswick’s The Ogre, about a Portland band with far too many descriptors in its subgenre; Armen Zilic’s Carpe Diem; and Peter Grey’s Invasion of the FreeBox Monsters. (Saturday, Clinton St.)

VOD/streaming

It’s been five years since a mob of rioters convinced that their political candidate had been cheated out of the Presidency mounted a chaotic insurrection in Washington, D.C. and attempted to topple the American government. In that time, the reality of that day’s events has been obscured and flat-out denied by the same people and organizations that inspired and carried them out. Michael Premo’s film Homegrown, which premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival but is now available on demand and updated to reflect the re-election of that supposedly cheated candidate, is here to remind us that these things happened. Premo followed three Trump supporters in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election and the weeks that followed, as the forces that would commit the first takeover of the U.S. Capital since the War of 1812 congealed both ideologically and physically. The film’s climax, of course, is the assault itself. The shock and disgust prompted by scenes from the best-documented instance of political violence in history feels fresh, perhaps because they’ve faded from our cultural short-term memory so much. As the crowd surges against the last tier of barricades outside the Capital, and one of Premo’s subjects postures and shoves police officers, another man leans into the frame and yells with complete conviction, “You’re not gonna steal from us anymore!” It’s not clear who he’s yelling at—the Capital Police? Congress? The nation at large?—which makes it a vivid illustration of the economic frustration that was exploited and curdled into nationalism and authoritarianism by forces clinging to power, democracy be damned. 3.5/5 (Available to rent on demand for $17.76 at Gathr.com.)

Also opening

Tala2ni: “The relationship between a couple ends in divorce, but a financial crisis forces the husband to seek his ex-wife’s help, leading them on a journey full of challenges and humorous situations, where they rediscover their true feelings.” (Regal Fox Tower)

Testament: “A young Bosnian man faces inheritance disappointment and navigates factory life in 1990s Zenica, while his friend’s schemes reveal community tensions before wartime.” (Regal Fox Tower)

We Bury the Dead: “After a catastrophic military disaster, the dead don’t just rise – they hunt. Ava [Daisy Ridley] searches for her missing husband, but what she finds is far more terrifying.” (multiple locations)

Repertory

(Titles in bold are especially rare or recommended)

Friday 1/2

• Cold Harvest [1999] (Cinemagic; VHS)
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers [1978] (Academy, through 1/8)
• Jawbreaker [1999] (Academy, through 1/8)
• The Matrix [1999] (Academy, through 1/8)
• Only Lovers Left Alive [2013] (Tomorrow)
• Spider-Man [2002] (multiple theaters)

Saturday 1/3

• Be Kind, Rewind [2008] (Salem)
• Frankenstein [2025] (Cinemagic, through 1/7)
• It Was Just an Accident [2025] (Cinemagic, through 1/8)
• Rebecca [1940] (Cinema 21)
• Twilight triple feature [2008-2012] (Tomorrow)

Sunday 1/4

• The Hunger [1983] (Tomorrow)
• The Lost Boys [1987] (Tomorrow)
• My Favorite Year [1982] (Salem)
• Superman: The Movie [1978] (multiple locations)

Monday 1/5

• Ghostbusters [1984] (multiple locations)
• Morvern Callar [2002] (Hollywood)

Tuesday 1/6

• China O’Brien [1990] (Hollywood)
• The Passion of Joan of Arc [1928] (Hollywood; with live cello score)

Wednesday 1/7

• Conan the Barbarian [1982] (multiple locations)
• XXX [2002] (Hollywood)

Thursday 1/8

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them [2016] (multiple locations)
• Labyrinth [1986] (multiple locations; through Sunday 1/11)