Weekend films

"Resurrection', a fascinating audiovisual experience

Chinese director Bi Gan's powerful feature film arrives in theatres. Also among the new releases is the biopic on Michael

by Andrea Chimento

24 April 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

A film that cannot leave one indifferent: one can either love or hate 'Resurrection', the latest torrential feature by director Bi Gan, but what is certain is that it is one of the most unconventional cinematic experiences of recent years.

After two films like 'Kaili Blues' and 'A Long Journey in the Night', which were fascinating but partly unresolved and not always convincing, the Chinese author reaches full maturity with an extremely ambitious operation, full of risks but also of great courage.

The narrative takes place in a remote, post-apocalyptic future where humanity has lost the ability to dream. But in an operating theatre, between life and death, a woman sinks into a state of suspended consciousness, driven by irreversible trauma and a body that slowly shuts down.

“Resurrection” e gli altri film della settimana
Photogallery4 foto

Trapped between a thousand visions, she finds herself in a desolate world, populated only by ruins and fragments of the past, dominated by silence and broken architecture. There she meets an enigmatic creature, a being halfway between man and machine that lies motionless amid broken dreams and distorted memories, waiting for an impulse to reactivate it. The woman realises that this creature is the only one left capable of dreaming.

However, the plot is certainly not enough to explain what 'Resurrection' offers, a visionary product whose script revolves around an ethical question: what to choose, if we were in the place of the protagonist, between returning to the real world or remaining forever in the dream world, where love, memory and the possibility of an awakening still seem to exist, even if only as moving shadows.

A homage to cinema

It is a great homage to the cinema of the past and, if we wish, also to that of the future, this film that still believes in the power of audiovisual language, reaching its climax in a final part in which communication can only take place through the techniques and basics of the Seventh Art.

With its splendid sequence shots (a trademark of Bi Gan's cinema), the film has a refined, elegant aesthetic that draws the audience into the narratives staged, as if they were many pieces of a mosaic capable of generating numerous interpretations and reflections.

There is no shortage of hints and references to authors of the past (Orson Welles, for instance), but 'Resurrection' manages to have its own, strong personality for (almost) the entire long duration.

Michael

After a courageous film like 'Resurrection', we are instead talking about a totally timorous operation like 'Michael', an insipid biopic dedicated to Michael Jackson.

A classic (all too much) biographical feature film that follows the life of a character from childhood to great success, 'Michael' is a film that never takes risks, leaving the controversies surrounding the character being told completely in the shade.

But that is not so much the problem with this insulting feature film, which has on its side the discrete performance of the main character (Jafaar Jackson, Michael's nephew) but little else to positively report.

The real tragedy is that this film, directed in a mediocre manner by Antoine Fuqua, is a really flat piece of work lacking any artistic flair. This is a great pity, given that at the centre of the story is one of the most creative, ingenious and imaginative singers and dancers that the history of music has ever had.