Resurrection [Kuang ye shi dai] (2025)

By my math, approximately 20% of Bi Gan's ode to cinema is set at New Year's, which is another way of saying one of the movie's six mini-stories plays out over that holiday. I don't really consider that sufficient to describe this as a "Christmas (or New Year's) movie," but the nature of the holiday section was interesting enough I wanted to write it up here, if only to catalog as an example in a surprisingly rich sub-subgenre of holiday media. First, let's talk about the work as a whole, or at least attempt to, because... this one's a doozy.

I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. In fact, I think the movie is fantastic and absolutely recommend it to any cinephiles... with a caveat. At risk of breaking my own rule about spoiling great movies without a warning, there's something I really wish I'd understood about Resurrection before watching: the movie both is and is not presented as a sort of anthology of shorts. The opening of the film establishes a lore-heavy sci-fi/fantasy backstory reminiscent of movies like The Matrix, Inception, Dark City, and so on. We're given an explanation tying together the stories we're about to see, and a recurring frame story reiterates the idea the lead character persists through each segment, shifting forms and identities as he moves through this cinematic dreamworld.

Due to the way this was framed, I attempted to watch and absorb this the way I would something like Cloud Atlas or the 1994 movie Being Human, movies where the narrative transcends setting and even genre. But while there's a sense in which that is the case here, approaching Resurrection in this manner turned out to be a mistake, as I kept finding myself distracted with questions of what the lead character did or did not remember through each incarnation. I was completely lost during a few sections, which in hindsight were fascinating little genre stories in their own right.

So my advice, at least to viewers like myself who aren't intimately familiar with Chinese culture and history is to approach the film as an anthology made up of five shorts (one of which is split in half and occupies the beginning and end of the film). Once the movie's done, you'll be able to appreciate some of the larger thematic elements and consider why it was created in this form. But from a narrative point of the view, the lead character(s) played by Jackson Yee are different people with different memories and lives, rather than a single entity transforming into different forms. Clearly the "Resurrection" alluded to in the English title (and only English title, it should be noted) helps square this circle, as do some more subtle references to Buddhist ideas (I found this interview helpful, by the way), but focusing too heavily on those aspects is going to distract from the individual stories. Trust me.

The entire movie is gorgeous, and the range of styles on display is extremely impressive and even more inventive. Even when the line separating expressionism and narrative reality is blurred, what's occurring is constantly intriguing. That goes for the frame story as well - I stand by my recommendation to ignore it in the context of the short films it surrounds, but it's incredible as an homage to the early days of moving pictures. The following three sections are likewise enjoyable.

But we're not going to go into detail on any of those, because we're of course here to discuss the New Year's segment, which conveniently is the most memorable part of the movie. This... may involve actual spoilers, though I'm not convinced knowing where it's heading will have all that detrimental of an effect, as this is really one of those experiences that's about the ride more than the destination. Still, consider this a spoiler warning for the last of the four main shorts in this anthology that may or may not really be an anthology.

I'm actually going to start with style before I get to plot, since a big part of what makes this section so impressive is the decision to film it as a single, uninterrupted shot (or at least to present it that way - these are more or less always accomplished with hidden cuts, and I'm assuming this is no different). Unlike most movies employing this technique, this sequence isn't constrained to a single room, but rather moves in an organic fashion across a waterfront, through back alleys and abandoned buildings, and into a night club. It shifts viewpoints, sometimes showing first-person perspectives that drift into other shots that later settle into other perspectives. It's an enchanting sequence that plays into themes of dreaming used throughout the entire piece, as well as creating a sense of immediacy central to this particular story.

Also, it's a vampire love story, so that's cool as hell. That's really the reason for the write-up, by the way: holiday vampire movies are surprisingly common. Or perhaps not so surprising, as New Year's is particularly resonant with stories about time, both in terms of its passage and cyclical nature. Both themes are of course relevant to narratives about beings with the potential to live forever. We've seen these ideas explored in Cronos and the recent Nosferatu remake.

This is a little different, however. The New Year's Eve in question is 1999, and the characters we're following don't seem interested in living forever. The protagonist, Apollo, insists he's unafraid of dying, while Tai Zhaomei (Gengxi Li) seems to be suicidal, assuming standard rules surrounding vampires and sunlight apply. It's heavily implied early on she's undead, and the ambiguity wears thin even before she outright tells Apollo, who laughs and says he doesn't care. There's a sense in which their world is coming to an end with the millennium, so death - be it by sunlight or blood loss (Apollo invites Tai to bite him at the end) - seems trivial. This is ultimately the story of young lovers attempting to escape their shackles and feel alive. In Tai's case, she's trying to escape a vampire lord. Apollo seems beyond caring about anything except her. It's a reckless love story that feels triumphant in its embrace of tragedy.

All this does tie into narrative threads in the larger movie. Apollo is a sort of incarnation/temporary identity of the protagonist throughout, who is dreaming within the language of cinema, which we're told has been lost and forgotten in the future. The movie itself feels like a sort of defiant challenge to the downfall of film due to TV, streaming, short online videos, and so on. Resurrection feels like a dirge to the medium, celebrating its beauty and power. Both the undead and New Year's Eve make for natural symbols of this idea. A bit towards the end where the film shifts to timelapse explores the passage of time within film further, exploring its subjectivity and the briefness of existence.

So while this might not count as a holiday movie under most definitions, it makes good use of that holiday. And, considered out of context, this one section would absolutely count as a New Year's short, as well as a holiday vampire film. It's also simply breathtaking to see craft this good on display. That's particularly true of the New Year's section (I really can't overstate how well the long shot was employed), but also of the movie as whole. The lack of intuitive cohesion is occasionally frustrating, but the sheer beauty of the filmmaking more than makes up for it.