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Director Park Chan-wook’s film No Other Choice opened on Christmas Day, the 25th (local time), in a limited release across five U.S. cities.

Neon, the U.S. distributor of No Other Choice, announced on its website and social media that the “masterpiece of cinema, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice is now playing in select theaters,” adding that it will screen “Everywhere January” across the country next month.

The poster shared by Neon included the message that the film is currently showing in Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles (LA), New York, and San Francisco.

[Screencap of Neon’s Instagram post. Redistribution and database storage prohibited.]

Hollywood media outlet Deadline introduced No Other Choice as one of the low-budget, independent films that opened in the United States this Christmas.

The outlet described the film as “the story of Mansu (Lee Byung-hun), who is suddenly fired from the company where he worked for 25 years and desperately searches for a new job.” It added that the film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, and earned Park Chan-wook the Best Director award at the Sitges Film Festival.

The report also noted that the film received a critics’ score of 99 on the review site Rotten Tomatoes and has been nominated for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Non-English Language Film, and Best Actor (Lee Byung-hun) at the Golden Globe Awards.

Immediately after its premiere at Venice in late August, the film earned perfect 100-point ratings from around 10 Rotten Tomatoes critics; it now holds a 99-point score based on reviews from about 130 critics.

Even after recent U.S. preview screenings, most major outlets have continued to give the film highly favorable reviews.

No Other Choice was also included among the 15 shortlisted titles announced on the 16th for the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film category.

Although its current U.S. release is limited, it is expected to help expand awareness and word of mouth among film fans, potentially giving the film a stronger position heading into the Golden Globes in January and the Academy Awards in March.

By Correspondent Lim Mina