After coming out of the screening of Resurrection, the feeling of adrenaline was a moment to remember at the London Film Festival 2025. These are precious moments where the hallowed statement, “This is what cinema is all about,” is uttered.
There are six parts to Resurrection, themed around the five senses and the human mind. All veer in and out of different time periods. In fact, the film is an ode to several different periods of cinema too. For example, it opens with a silent film sequence, complete with scroll-printed intertitles, and then later on we have a smoky film noir.
Resurrection is premised on an alternative reality in which humans achieve immortality if they do not allow themselves to dream. But there is one rebel who does dream, an android that is captivated by the disappearing human dreams of a bygone world. A woman, before killing the android to suit the new world order of non-dreaming, decides to offer it an act of kindness. She opens up the back of the android and inserts a roll of film into its spine-projector, which plunges the android into multiple dreamscapes. The dreams cover a medley of stories, all displaying shades of Wong Kar-Wai, Tarkovsky, and a touch of the magical realism of Weerasethakul.
One dream is probably a 30 to 40 minute one-shot – a skill that Bi Gan has truly mastered, as seen in his last film Long Day's Journey Into Night. In that movie, he pulled off 59 minutes of continuous shooting with complex actions occurring both simultaneously and sequentially. There's even a part of the oner where the camera is literally flying down a zip wire. That same wizadry is seen in Resurrection, except here Bi Gan pulls more tricks from up his sleeve. One minute you're looking at a woman embracing her lover, and the next minute she is transformed physically, but inconspicuously, with a sleight of hand. You can only watch with disbelief at how the camera is controlled with precision and the actors are all impeccably faithful to their characters and scene geography. It's a one-shot wonder.
As with his last film, Bi Gan uses karaoke as a recurring satirical device to highlight capitalist apathy and violence. There's a moment where someone is getting beaten to a pulp next to a gang leader who is immersed in his karaoke while nonchalantly sipping on a clearly branded coca cola. It's small but wider points like this that are incorporated seamlessly throughout.
For those who have not yet seen any of his films: be warned. You may want to start with Level 1 Bi Gan first (probably his debut, Kaili Blues) before jumping ahead to this, his most advanced, his most ludicrously imaginative work yet with a sumptuous score to boot. But the common denominator in all his work is that you have to be up for the ride. Tell yourself that it will make sense if you want it to make sense or simply go in not wanting to make sense of it. If that makes sense.
Resurrection is one of those films that will be rewatched several times with renewed vigour on every re-watch. This is simply put, Bi Gan's magical madness captured on screen and channelled through extreme technical flair.
Resurrection was screened as part of the Love strand at the London Film Festival 2025
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