'Crypto Man' turns crypto chaos into missed opportunity
Camera flashes erupted like strobe lights Monday at Seoul's Yongsan CGV theater to capture an emotional scene: An otherwise staid film promotion event transformed into an impromptu memorial. The press conference for "Crypto Man," an upcoming cryptocurrency drama, kept circling back to its absent star -- Song Jae-rim, who was found dead at his home in November.
Director Hyun Hae-ri broke down as she discussed Song's casting as the film’s main lead. "I was drawn to his mysterious aura for this role," she managed through tears. "So professional, so warm-hearted. It hurts that he can't be here with us today."
Co-star Ahn Woo-yeon attempted to lighten the mood but choked up himself. "We even talked about starting a business together," he recalled. "I promised myself I'd fight tooth and nail to promote this film, for Song." Min Sung-wook, who plays a shadowy venture capitalist, remembered Song as someone who "belied his cold appearance -- always talking about acting, changing lines in the heat of the moment."
The film underwent multiple transformations during production. Originally titled "Six Times Bust" in Korean, it was conceived as a black comedy about the moral hazard of startup culture before pivoting to crypto -- a shift partly inspired by Hyun's own losses in the 2022 Terra-LUNA crash. "The hype was irresistible back then," she admitted. "You felt like a fool if you didn't buy in. Now we're seeing that same cycle again."
"Crypto Man" follows Yang Do-hyun (Song), a serial entrepreneur who launches a cryptocurrency venture called MOMMY, a thinly veiled reference to the LUNA stablecoin implosion that vaporized $34 billion. "I wanted to explore the line between intentional frauds and delusional pawns," said Hyun, known for her Cannes-premiered "Nine Times Fired." "The protagonist truly believes he's a businessman, not a fraud."
The film's premise is clear: Charting how a hyper-competitive culture that rewards achievement at all costs breeds its monsters. Hyun's zeitgeist-savvy touch captures Korea's generational traits: faith in meritocracy, credentialed elitism, and the cult of nonstop hustling.
Yet, instead of weaving these promising elements into a cohesive frame, the film splatters them across a prolonged, episodic backstory from high school to college, all with little organic progression. A lengthy detour into a college club’s accounting fraud feels misplaced, while Yang's relationship with his supportive but inept mother, though intriguing, adds little substance to the larger picture -- likely a result of the film's mid-production pivot. This disjointed approach gives way to unnecessary vulgarities as well, not least in the depiction of a wealthy classmate faking a disability for a scholarship, a device that feels both gratuitous and problematic.
Perhaps most damningly, the film barely engages with its very subject matter -- the conception of the so-called "stablecoin," the worldwide frenzy it inspired, and the behind-the-scenes machinations that fueled it all. Without much to say about the anatomy of the Ponzi scheme, it leaves a void only filled by an absurd picaresque of a deranged crypto bro who barks profanities during conference calls and cries out, in one particularly laughable instance, “Who the f--- is the SEC?”
Song's enthusiastic performance occasionally hints at something deeper, and it's a real shame his last dance is undermined by the screenplay's clumsy caricature.
If "Crypto Man" is an earnest but failed attempt at nuance, it speaks to a poverty of imagination. If it's an offshoot of the black comedy the director claims to have envisioned -- a farce meant to deconstruct the myth of genius and authority behind crypto grifters -- it lands with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
"Crypto Man" hits theaters Jan. 15.
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