Resurrection

An Other One who resolves to grant a gentle death to a devoted Deliriant by placing a film projector inside him, enabling him to dream through cinema. She embodies a paradox of mercy and control, guiding the boundary between life and art. Her actions reveal a belief that dreams are essential to humanity’s longing.

The central Deliriant who recurs in multiple forms across decades. In mid-20th-century and beyond, he moves from a murder accusation to becoming an art thief, a con artist, and a hoodlum, each incarnation tethered to the dream-scene via cinema. His lives intersect with various figures and rituals as he seeks meaning and release. The transformations probe how identity persists through change.

A ruthless figure seeking a mysterious suitcase that could end the war. He tortures Qiu to reveal its location and ultimately confronts him on a train before his own demise. His obsession with control and order contrasts with the Deliriant’s dream-driven world. His ending ties fate to a performative act of death and remembrance.

A young singer who reveals herself to be a vampire, entering a doomed romance with the Deliriant under New Year’s Eve lights. Her bite and eventual exposure to sunlight symbolize the collision of desire, peril, and mortality. She embodies both allure and danger within the story’s dream-realm.

A trickster Spirit inhabiting a tooth that the Deliriant releases in a ruined temple. The Spirit embodies bitterness and resentment and ultimately seeks Enlightenment through a Buddhist ritual, illustrating the film’s fusion of myth and spirituality. Its interactions with Mongrel drive the moral arc of that segment.

An orphan who partners with the Deliriant in a series of elaborate deceptions, illustrating the exploitation and resilience of innocence in this dream-filled world. Her arc culminates in solving a banknote riddle and surviving the mob’s manipulation. She embodies cunning and cautious hope amid treachery.

A figure encountered in the film’s dream-like vignettes, anchoring ritual and memory in a world where age and wisdom intersect with myth and cinema. His presence hints at lineage and instruction within the Deliriant’s cycles.

A spectral figure who anchors the theme of mortality within the dream sequence. His presence marks consequences for the Deliriant’s journey through time, and his fate echoes in the final ritual.

A witness in one of the film’s evocative settings, she embodies the environment’s sensory textures and contributes to the mood of mystery and magic surrounding the cinema’s dream-world.