Long Day’s Journey Into Night Director Bi Gan’s Next Film Is Sci-Fi Drama Resurrection

Five years after his technically ambitious feature Long Day’s Journey into Night wowed Cannes audiences with its final hour-long 3D sequence, Chinese writer-director Bi Gan is back in business with plans for a sci-fi drama titled Resurrection. According to Variety, Bi is currently finishing the script, with plans to begin filming before the end of the year. The film will be co-produced by Charles Gillibert’s CG Cinema, the same studio that financed Long Day’s Journey, with actors Shu Qi (The Assassin, Millennium Mambo) and Jackson Yee (Better Days) set to star and past collaborator Dong Jingsong attached as DP.

According to Variety, Resurrection will center on a woman who gets trapped in an “eternal time zone” made up of her own dreams while undergoing surgery. There, she finds an android corpse whose senses gradually awaken when she begins to tell it stories.

Known for his challenging narratives and alluring compositions, the filmmaker previously broke out with his sophomore feature, Kaili Blues—which won Bi Best Emerging Director at Locarno in 2015. It then went on to pick up awards at Taipei’s Golden Horse festival as well as the Three Continents Festival in Nantes. 

His following film, Long Day’s Journey into Night, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and won Best Cinematography, Best Original Film Score and Best Sound  Effects at the Golden Horse Awards. His upcoming fourth feature could premiere in festivals as soon as next year.

Ursula Muñoz S. is a critic, journalist and MFA candidate at Boston University who has previously written for news and entertainment outlets in Canada and the United States. Her work has appeared at Xtra, Cineaste, Bright Wall/Dark Room and more. For further reading, feel free to follow her on Substack and X, where she muses about Taylor Swift and Pedro Almodóvar (among other things).