Time: 156 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Violence, cruelty, drug references & content that may disturb
Cast:
Jackson Yee as Deliriant / Qiu Moyun / Mongrel / Jia Shengjun / Apollo
Shu Qi as The Big Other / Mother / Voiceover
Mark Chao as Commander
Li Gengxi as Tai Zhaomei
Huang Jue as Mr. Luo
Chen Yongzhong as Spirit of Bitterness
Director: Bi Gan

Resurrection was one of the films from 2025 I most wanted to catch up on. I’m not familiar with director Bi Gan, but I heard such acclaim for it and the visuals looked absolutely gorgeous from the trailers. It lived up to all the acclaim, it was quite an experience.

The premise of Resurrection is that it takes place in the future in which most of humanity has given up on dreaming in exchange to live forever, while those who retain their dreaming are persecuted and die. That being said,  this setup does feel like it’s an excuse or explanation for everything that follows the first section. The majority of the movie is broken up into individual chapters as it cycles through multiple dreams of an individual, each with their own unique style, narrative, mood and pace. It pays tribute to film and different eras of cinema, and especially conveys how film can bring dreams to reality. It is initially confusing and overwhelming, but even if you don’t fully understand everything, it’s easy to get drawn into the experience and atmosphere. I was constantly captivated and invested throughout the 2 hour and 40 minutes runtime.

This is the first movie I’ve seen from Bi Gan, but after Resurrection, I definitely want to check out his other work. The cinematography is truly stunning, some of the very best from 2025, and there are some unbelievable visuals that have to be seen to be believed. Each of the aforementioned segments are presented with very distinctly different visuals and styles; the first part of the movie is presented as a silent film, and without getting too in depth, the highlight for me was a particular sequence set in 1999. The production design is also top notch and the score from M83 is incredible and transcendent.

Resurrection is visually spectacular, mesmerising, experimental, captivating, dreamlike, ambitious, and phenomenally directed. One of the best movies of 2025.