Is it better to dream and be dead or simply just be alive? Bi Gan’s Resurrection is a dizzying, confounding film that delivers an out-of-body experience while you watch. There is nothing like this film and most likely will never be again. A masterpiece that is divided into multiple chapters highlighting each human sense while exploring what it means to truly be alive. A hypnotizing generational piece of work acting as an ode to the art form of cinema. 

Films that are described as both a love and hate later to cinema are often highlight what once was and display a yearning for the past. ‘Love letters’ have a theme of chasing how do we get back there while ‘hate letters’ have a polarizing outlook on the state of the art form and how we’ll never get back to what it once was. “What is it that once lost you can never get back?”  Bi Gan’s Resurrection examines the potential of cinema through what we lost and where we are presently in life. Moving through life and the film in complete disbelief at what is happening but using it to your advantage. “What door can never be opened? The door to the mind.” Bi is working through genres and various styles of the medium of film to not only celebrate or mourn the past but reclaim it. Resurrection is not just honoring the past forms of cinema but showing us what is possible, that the art of cinema is still in its infancy and can only grow from here as long as we keep dreaming. Is it better to dream and be dead or simply just be alive?

Discussing Resurrection and what the film is about is sort of a hard discussing. It’s intentionally loose in its framework and designed to be an abstract journey into not just humanity but cinema as an art form. What Bi achieves here is monumental and will inspire generations to come, not just artists but people yearning to find the ability to dream despite how challenging life presents itself as. Resurrection genuinely feels like stepping into the unknown, leaping into a world you never imagined could actually exist. The film is all about dreams and dreams within those dreams that feel unfathomable to reach yet Bi takes us there, both mentally and on some level, physically. Watching this film is soul-stirring and defies conventions of what watching a film is as an experience. Bi captures what you can only imagine it feels to be inside a dream. It reinvents itself as each chapter unfolds, it feels completely dizzying, consuming and yet completely poignant. The film is structured yet wholly loose, it’s chapters never hold it back thematically or visually in what Bi is reaching with this epic story. Resurrection is a staggering, monumental achievement in filmmaking that will change the art form forever. 

Bi has described the film as being for the people who still have the ability to love and when you see Resurrection, you’ll completely understand it. It’s not about what once was or what things could be, it’s focusing on the desire to dream, the desire for what can happen. Without the ability to dream, we can’t achieve anything new. The film balances this feeling of everything you have ever imagined is both closer and further than it’s ever been. It sounds impossible but Bi has truly achieved encapsulating this idea of yearning for what once was and what has yet to happen. The cinematic odyssey that is Resurrection opens with a German expressionist era set as we are introduced to fantasmers, who dream in secret as dreams are now considered illegal; in this dystopian future, dreams are what ends life and the secret to eternal life is simple, no dreaming. It’s clear Bi is utilizing dreams here as a placeholder for films and these fantasmers are the visionaries who are not settling for the easy way of creating art but are chasing to create films no one has dared to make before. Jackson Yee plays this daring fantasmer with a new identity in each chapter. Chasing him throughout is Miss Shu (Shu Qi), who promises him a gentle, respectful death as he lives out his final dreams. She’s almost maternal the way she cares for him and follows him; she has her own sense of whimsy and desire to dream as she follows him on his quest for dreams. Bi captures the essence of dreams versus nightmares through her viewpoint of our fantasmer; dreams serve to tantalize and inspire us while nightmares invoke a sense of dread. Resurrection operates just as something you imagine when you sleep; it’s hard to describe the plot beat by beat but it feels overwhelming in how you remember the way it makes you feel. It lingers under your skin for days, weeks, months to come. As the film goes on, each chapter becomes more vivid and bizarre; a truly hallucinatory experience exploring the art of cinema through these liminal planes of existence. What is cinema if not something you dream of? Cinema is somewhere to escape, to live a thousand lives you never thought possible, but can this feeling go on forever if the artists who make film are limited? Bi challenges that as he yearns for the future to be something full of dreams and more styles that have yet to be unrealized. 

Resurrection is a feast for the senses and must be seen to be believed, to be understood and to genuinely be realized as what it is, a testament to the future of filmmaking. Bi ascends to where no one has been before and while narratively it’s hard to pin down, this is a film you watch to understand. It’s impossible to not feel it wash over you if you love the art form of cinema. There are various shots you can’t even begin to describe that will take your breath away. It’s acting as both an homage and a lament; it’s a challenging balance to find both narratively and visually yet Bi completely achieves it to an astonishing effect. Perfectly paired with the best direction of the year are each level of crafts. The brilliant production design effortlessly guiding you between each era presented, particularly standing out the first segment and the scope needed for that final oner. The original score from M83 is otherworldly, it transports your mind and body into a new world and washes over you within each scene, directly putting you in the emotional space occupied by the fantasmer.

Resurrection is a dizzying, confounding film that delivers an out-of-body experience while you watch. There is nothing like this film and most likely will never be again. Moving through life often feels isolating and cinema is a place you can experience alone, much like a dream, but it feels better to share with someone. The ending of Resurrection is such a beautiful testament to this idea of sharing a life with someone; is it painful to live forever or is it better to dream in such a consuming way and have a fleeting life?

Grade: A+

Oscar Prospects:
Likely: None
Should be Considered: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actor (Jackson Yee), Best Supporting Actress (Shu Qi), Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best International Feature

Release Date: December 12, 2025
Where to Watch: In Select Theaters