“Resurrection”
Bi Gan’s dazzling, cerebral sci-fi phantasm folds memory, myth and cinematic form into a single, dream-logic tapestry. Set in a future in which humanity has traded the ability to dream for immortality, “Resurrection” follows the last remaining “deliriant” (Jackson Yee), a Frankenstein-like being still capable of dreaming, and the woman (Shu Qi) tasked with entering his subconscious to retrieve buried truths. What unfolds is an episodic odyssey through visions shaped by Chinese history, genre homage and shifting perspectives. It’s a visually sensual smorgasbord told in chapters aligning with a different sense and narrative style — we begin with German expressionism and wind up with one of the most stunning long shots ever projected on a screen. It’s bathed ominously in languid red and takes place in a trash-strewn, cyberpunk part of the city that hosts a vampire lair where a young punker (Yee again, who plays five roles — one per sense) has come to profess his love for a mercurial chanteuse (Gengxi Li) This bold, poetic nightmare resonates with humanity and wonder. “Resurrection” should be expressly seen on the big screen to drink in Gan’s riveting dreamscape meander.
“No Other Choice”
Park Chan-wook, the skilled hand behind such subtly sinister gems as “Oldboy” (2003) “Decision to Leave” (2022) and “The Handmaiden” (2016) adapts Donald Westlake’s 1997 thriller “The Axe” (previously adapted by Costas-Gavras in 2005) about a laid off employee, emasculated by society and willing to kill to get back in the labor force. Lee Byung-hun’s anti-hero Yoo Man-sun works for a Korean paper company taken over by the Yanks and is promptly downsized. A middle manager with a nuclear family and bills to pay, the job market is a hard place for a nondescript in a niche industry to land a job.
The downstream effects come home to roost when Netflix gets shut off—his kids give him the stink eye and his wife (Son Ye-jin) is none too happy that her dance lessons with her hunky instructor get cancelled. To secure employment, Man-sun decides the best way to get to the front of the resume queue is to cull the completion—taking out his former co-workers also vying for the same job. What ensues are some slow, sloppy offings that Park stages with great comedy despite their grim affect. As always, the Korean auteur keeps us on hook with unpredictable outcomes and rising stakes. Westlake’s “Axe” was noir-ish pulp, onscreen, Park plays it for dark, cyclical fare with a devilish smile. It’s “The Apprentice” via “Squid Games,” which is fitting as Byung-hun starred in that series.
“We Bury the Dead”
How many different ways can we recast the zombie apocalypse? Let us count the ways, or maybe not, as it all starts and stops with George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” (1968)—and yet shambles forth a niche genre with each additional incarnation attempting to put its own stamp on viral-bred undead that eat the living. This variant from writer/director Zak Hilditch (“1922”) starts with the U.S. military’s accidental detonation of a war device in the South Pacific eradicates half the population of Tasmania. The areas closest to the explosion are fire-stormed and decimated. Further north, folks die from the fallout, but some come back to life with demonic eyes and chomping teeth. Most are docile, until you go south—closer to the epicenter (Hobart is toast)—where boss-level zombs run like Olympic decathletes.
“We Bury the Dead” is literally about the act of the title. It’s also about the vestiges of humanity as civilization falls away, closure and hope. Enter Ava (Daisy Ridley), a Californian who volunteers for body retrieval duty hoping to find her husband, Mitch (Matt Whelan), on a business retreat at a resort when the bomb went off. She gets paired up with Clay (Brenton Thwaites), a man looking for redemption, and enlists him to break from their military monitored service and hop a motorcycle to enter the restricted zone where the resort is located. “We Bury the Dead” is less your typical hack-fest through a decomposing zombie horde and more centered on Ava, her quest and her resolve. In flashbacks we get keys to her and Mitch’s complicated relationship, which deepens the understanding of her mission’s why. The tenuous bond with Clay helps drive the action too, even if it is predictable. No real guts are spilled per se, just emotional ones.
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