Why do we go to the cinema?
'Resurrection', by Bi Gan, is an excessive, hallucinatory, and ambitious film like few recent works
- Directed and written by: Bi Gan 160 minutesChina (2025)Starring Jackson Yee, Shu Qi, Mark Chao, and Li Gengxi
Resurrection has a starting point that seems like the work of : humans have discovered that they can live indefinitely if they don't dream, if they spend days and push years accepting the reality they've been dealt. But in every era, there's a small group of dreamers, idealists, who imagine a different world. Bi Gan, obviously, supports this resistance cell that defends imagination, escapism, and, of course, cinema, as an indispensable part of life. That's why his film is as dreamlike as a David Lynch film and has as much inventiveness as an Orson Welles film.Between vampires, gangsters, spies, ghosts, and romances, Resurrection
throws out another warning about current cinema: it doesn't have to be perfect. Within its baroque style, not all the stories within the film work equally well; some images grate, there are parts that are too cryptic, and sometimes the director gets carried away by a slightly exhibitionist virtuosity. And you know what? It doesn't matter. In these 160 minutes beats a creative attribute that is the reason why we often pay for a ticket: freedom.