After having explored horror flick territory with
Hollow, seen at FEFF last year, the Vietnamese-American director Ham Tran continues his journey through genre cinema with a Vietnamese re-reading of the heist movie, updated for the internet age.
Indeed, in his Bitcoin Heist, the coveted booty is not even material, but literally virtual. The bitcoins of the title are a virtual currency, convertible into real money, but which only exists online in QR code form. This is perhaps the most original and fascinating aspect of a film which treads a well-beaten path in terms of narrative construction and directorial choices. But he does it in true Ham Tran style, with professionalism and flair, making a giant leap forward in terms of quality of Vietnamese cinema.
The film opens with a prologue where, in a prison courtyard, a cross-eyed gangster is playing a game of Chinese chess with a seemingly shy and unassuming youngster, Phuc. The latter explains to his menacing opponent the bitcoin credit system, leaving him amazed at the cunning of this young money-man who, manipulating the game, manages to put him into checkmate.
We then meet Phuc again in the real opening of the film, an upbeat action scene in which a squad of Vietnamese cops, led by the carefree Dada, are trying to break a ring of international money laundering, run through bitcoin transactions.
Phuc is in the pay of Ghost, an occult IT finance operator, managing his accounts. Alongside a charming intermediary/bodyguard, he goes to an appointment to close a mega deal. But when the police intervene, the two split up and are given chase by Dada’s squad. The police invasion and the shoot-out that entails were shot and edited by Ham Tran (who writes and edits his own films) in a hyperkinetic way, with skewed framing, wide angles and constant cuts. It is a genuine tour de force which seems to follow the golden rule of “capture the viewers’ attention in the first fifteen minutes or lose them forever”!
As Phuc and his bodyguard separate, with him ending up in the backstage of a theatre showing a Chinese opera – giving him the rather symbolic chance to hide beneath a mask, she arrives at a telephone shop run by Bi and Vi, a nerd brother and sister who spend their days gaming online.
When Bi transfers the bitcoin credits he has discovered in the phone the woman asks him to repair, an intriguing and very complex plot is triggered, the backbone of the enthralling storyline that unfolds.
This is just a taster of what follows: Dada – the daughter of the police chief – is forced to resign for having failed in her mission, but is taken on again as an undercover cop who has to set up a gang of criminals which includes Phuc, Jack Magique, the thief Luhan and his daughter Linh, as well as Vi, who wants to avenge her brother, now in a coma. They are united in their effort to rout out Ghost, who they have identified as being the Korean magnate Thomas Nam. There is an epilogue in Taiwan, with a night-time chase in the middle of the sea.
The cinematic references that Ham Tran’s film conjure up are numerous (there is even a gore scene which brings to mind the Saw series of films), and the spirit of Bitcoin Heist, after the excitable opening, is one of fun.
And the pleasure obtained from pure entertainment is, in the end, what counts in a film that tips its hat to American cinema, but also Asian mainstream film (the Korean and Taiwanese presences seem like a declaration of intent towards widening the horizons of commercial Vietnamese cinema), knowingly played on the reversal of identity. The finale is open-ended, leaving the path clear for a sequel.