Resurrection Review: Dreaming When We’re Awake

Bi Gan’s Resurrection is an ambitious and evocative tribute to cinema through the ages. Just don’t expect it to make much sense.

Gan’s previous feature Long Day’s Journey Into Night was a challenge to our perception of memory, but Resurrection might be an even more ambitious beast. 

The opening text of Resurrection tries to make sense of what’s to come. In an alternate reality, humans have achieved immortality by learning how not to dream. Of course, there are holdouts who continue to enter the dream realm, known as ‘Fantasmers’. Their continued dreaming threatens the fabric of time. Already, you can spot the metaphor for dreams as the art of filmmaking, and Gan is not subtle about it. Since its inception, cinema has been a disruptor, a fascinating amalgamation of the seemingly disparate elements of sound and vision to create images we could previously have only imagined. Resurrection imperfectly but sincerely attempts to capture that feeling of wonder when the first films were brought to the world. 

Gan’s film is a portmanteau of six different stories, each one told in the style of a different era of filmmaking. With the variety that comes from the film’s structure, Gan isn’t intending one uniform message for Resurrection, other than to declare that cinema is valid, no matter where or how it was made. It is challenging but hypnotic, and a reminder to the viewer of how this form of entertainment came to be. The idea of the Fantasmer is just there to tie the film’s various narratives together, but there is truth in the attempt. Much like a dream, Resurrection starts in one place and time, and winds up in other places with little regard for rules or expectations. Gan doesn’t care that the comparison between dreams and film is obvious; indeed, he openly embraces it. 

The first story is an homage to silent cinema, with the Fantasmer appearing as a monster in the vein of Nosferatu. The Fantasmer is played in the various stories by Jackson Yee, disappearing into each variation of the character with conviction and distinctive costumes. The opening is full of visual tricks straight out of German Expressionism, with moving sets and elaborate shadows. Old as these methods may be, their relative lack of use in an CG-overloaded age means it’s always fun to see a modern filmmaker embrace them. Gan’s film is full of sumptuous visuals. DoP Dong Jinsong and production designers Liu Qiang and Tu Nan follow their director’s lead, taking influence from multiple sources and ensuring the stories in Resurrection are as distinct in look as they are in narrative.

From the silent era, the Fantasmer reawakens in a 1930s noir, where trenchcoated men sashay through foggy alleys, and mirrors are forever showing the characters who their real nemesis is. Playing like Orson Welles, Gan creates immersive visuals to enrapture the viewer, even when the story isn’t pulling its weight. The Fantasmer’s run from the law in this second story is largely an excuse for shots through windows and massive glass ceilings being bombed to the ground. It’s no less nonsensical than making up a plot for Mission: Impossible 8 just to get Tom Cruise hanging from a biplane in midair, but Resurrection has more of a sense of purpose. Each jump in time is part of a whistle stop tour through the history of film. Gan feels an urge to educate and enlighten.

When the Fantasmer next arrives in a snowy Buddhist temple, and engages with a spirit (Chen Yongzhong) that’s been haunting him with toothache, we’re in the 1950s, with the philosophy of Bergman and the folklore of Kurosawa. Resurrection’s structure of leaps through time means it lacks the cohesive power of Long Day’s Journey Into Night. That lack of cohesion might explain why Resurrection needs a good deal more effort than most comparable features.

Even a fully-caffeinated punter might need a nap to process the film, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As well as honouring film’s past, Gan explores the breadth of our experience with film. Different parts of the world might engage with different styles and stories, and Resurrection reflects that mix. If it sends you to sleep at any point, Gan posits that it’s an entirely valid subjective response. It may have had people falling asleep in the screening rooms of Cannes, but that effect is part of the charm of this undeniably unique picture.

A further leap takes us to a story of the Fantasmer’s crooked card counter and his young protegé (Guo Mucheng), blending the trickiness of The Sting with the strained parental dynamics of Kramer vs. Kramer. Despite the shifts in genre, Gan’s ambition never lets up. In fact, that ambition only seems to increase until it climaxes with the final story.

Resurrection’s coup de grace is a meet-cute set on New Year’s Eve 1999, comprising one half-hour shot following the Fantasmer and his girl (Li Gengxi) across a cityscape as they run with vitality of newfound love. It’s Tsai Ming-Liang rigour married to Wong Kar-wai’s colour palette, with elegantly framed moments of stillness and unceasing energy. If anyone has dipped out of Resurrection by then, it’s their loss. Only a true cinephile could spot every possible tribute, borrowed frame or repurposed camera move, but Gan also knows tastes very wildly. If the first story doesn’t grab you, just wait; another one will. There is something for everyone here, and if you’re willing to work for it, you’ll find the fuel for your dreams for a while to come.

Resurrection premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2025, where it won the Special Award.