茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS

[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Dreams Without Dreamers: Bi Gan’s Beautifully Perverse Resurrection” by Oliver Farry

Bi Gan (director), Resurrection 狂野时代, 2025. 156 mins.

Bi Gan’s third film is a splendid-looking enigma in the manner of David Lynch or Leos Carax, one that will puzzle most viewers on first encounter but reward many with repeated rewatchings.

Straddling science fiction and fantasy, Resurrection bears an English title whose overt Christian resonance sits bafflingly at odds with the film itself. The original Chinese title, Kuangye Shidai 狂野时代, translates as “Wild Era” or “Untamed Age,” evoking unregulated energy and historical turbulence that aligns far more naturally with the film’s speculative atmosphere and aesthetic volatility. Set in a future where humanity has relinquished the capacity to dream in exchange for extended life, the film frames this Faustian bargain not as a clean technological advancement but as a devastating metaphysical impoverishment.

Miss Shu (Shu Qi) discovers a so-called “Deliriant” (Jackson Yee), an other-worldly being who continues to dream, and, in a silent opening sequence reminiscent of German Expressionism, installs a film camera in his brain to record those dreams.

What follows are six disparate dream sequences, each based on the six senses in Buddhist thought, all of which feature Yee. The final sequence is a technically brilliant 30-minute single take, which, after three films, has become something of a leitmotif for Bi.

Narratively, there is not a great deal of substance, but this paucity is more than compensated for by the beauty and strangeness of the work. One cannot help but admire Bi’s doggedness, as an ethnic Miao from the provincial city of Kaili, in smuggling art films into the multiplex.

Public reaction in China was divided, with many expecting something very different from a film starring two of Chinese cinema’s biggest stars, Shu Qi and Jackson Yee. Bi, however, was unapologetic about the bait and switch, having previously marketed his second feature, Long Day’s Journey into Night (2018), as a Valentine’s Day film. Long may his effrontery continue.

^{How to cite: Farry, Oliver. “Dreams Without Dreamers: Bi Gan’s Beautifully Perverse Resurrection.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 25 Dec. 2025, chajournal.com/2025/12/25/resurrection.}

Oliver Farry is from Sligo, Ireland. He works as a writer, journalist, translator and photographer. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The New Statesman, The New Republic, The Irish Times, Winter Papers, The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly and gorse, among other publications. Visit his website for more information. [All texts by Oliver Farry.] [Oliver Farry and chajournal.blog.]