Resurrection (2025) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

The Deliriant is a being who has preserved the ability to dream in a world where humanity traded dreams for longer life. He reincarnates through different lifetimes across history, appearing as Qiu in the mid-20th century, Mongrel thirty years later, Jia decades after that, and finally Apollo in 1999. Each incarnation represents a different chapter of the same immortal soul, with the Other Ones (like Miss Shu) hunting Deliriants to preserve a fragile balance in society.

Foreshadowing: The opening scene establishes that Deliriants are rare beings who retain the capacity to dream, making them both precious and dangerous.

• deliriant
• reincarnation
• dream
• immortality
• other ones

Miss Shu, an Other One, grants the dying Deliriant a merciful end after witnessing his stubborn devotion to the dream life. Rather than letting him simply perish, she installs a film projector inside him so he can experience cinematic visions within his own body and mind after death, a final gift that allows him to continue dreaming through cinema.

Foreshadowing: This act of granting dreams through film foreshadows the film's recurring theme of cinema as a bridge between life and death.

• miss shu
• film projector
• cinema
• dreams
• other ones

The suitcase contains a hidden theremin, an electronic musical instrument, making it the object of a larger war between factions in this era. The Commander tortures Qiu to discover the suitcase's location inside a mirror shop. The theremin becomes the instrument of fate when the Commander later plays Bach's "Come, Sweet Death" on it, linking the weaponized memory of the Deliriant's legend to his own identity.

Foreshadowing: The theremin's haunting sound appears both as a weapon and a symbol of the Deliriant's inescapable legend.

• suitcase
• theremin
• commander
• mirror shop
• fountain pen

When cornered in the mirror shop, Qiu declares "I am the suitcase" to emphasize that his identity has become inseparable from the object everyone seeks. This cryptic statement signals that the Deliriant's essence has merged with the weaponized memory and legend surrounding him, his existence IS the prize, not merely its container.

Foreshadowing: This declaration foreshadows how the Deliriant's identity becomes consumed by the myths surrounding him.

• qiu
• suitcase
• identity
• mirror shop

After Qiu stabs him in one ear during the escape, the Commander later wounds himself in the other ear and plays Bach's "Come, Sweet Death" on the theremin as a grim vigil. This act suggests psychological destruction and symbolic surrender, mirroring Qiu's violence against him while embracing death as a form of completion. He then tracks Qiu to the train to finish their confrontation.

Foreshadowing: The self-mutilation reflects the Commander's obsession with matching or completing the Deliriant's legend.

• commander
• self-harm
• theremin
• come sweet death
• bach

After performing a Buddhist ritual with the Spirit of Bitterness, Mongrel's fate takes a dark turn, he becomes the embodiment of a real dog. While the Spirit achieves a form of Enlightenment through the rite, Mongrel is transformed into an animal, blurring the line between thief and spirit, dream and waking life.

Foreshadowing: The transformation suggests that the Deliriant's nature can manifest in various forms, animal as well as human.

• mongrel
• dog
• buddhist temple
• spirit of bitterness
• transformation

Mongrel reveals a dark memory: he killed his father to spare him an agonizing death from rabies. The Spirit of Bitterness, reincarnated into a Buddha statue's tooth, adopts the father's appearance, adding emotional complexity to their relationship. This act of mercy killing represents the Deliriant's willingness to make desperate choices to prevent suffering.

Foreshadowing: This backstory explains why Mongrel carries such guilt and why the Spirit's presence haunts him.

• mongrel
• father
• rabies
• killing
• spirit of bitterness

The orphan girl carries a banknote with a riddle she believes will summon her father back. Jia teaches her tricks and uses her in scams, but discovers another banknote bearing a profane answer to her riddle. He plans to abandon her but is killed before returning. The riddle represents hope for reunion, while the answer Jia finds suggests a cruel twist to that hope.

Foreshadowing: The bank's note subplot demonstrates how memory and deception intertwine in a world where reality can be manufactured.

• banknote
• riddle
• jia
• orphan girl
• father

After Jia is robbed and killed, the mob boss asks the girl to decipher the final message his estranged daughter left on a burned piece of paper. Using her keen senses, especially smell, she detects the correct answer and completes the task. This arc emphasizes how sensory clues can unlock hidden truths in a world where reality is manufactured.

Foreshadowing: The girl's ability to read through scent highlights how the Deliriant's influence extends to those around him.

• orphan girl
• mob boss
• burnt paper
• smell
• message

Tai Zhaomei claims she has never bitten anyone, but when she and Apollo are granted a chance to escape together by Mr. Luo, she reveals her vampiric nature and bites Apollo with his full consent. Their tragic kiss beneath the rising sun ends with Apollo dying from his wounds while Tai is overwhelmed by daylight, fulfilling the vampire mythology while subverting the typical redemption arc.

Foreshadowing: The consent-based bite and subsequent death under the sun subvert typical vampire narrative expectations.

• tai zhaomei
• apollo
• vampire
• bite
• sunrise
• death

After Apollo dies, Miss Shu dresses the Deliriant in "monster garbs" and conducts a funeral rite, attempting one last connection through cinema. The film ends in a wax movie theater where bright figures slowly melt away, leaving only memories projected in light. This final tableau represents transcendence through art, the dream finally released, the Deliriant's essence preserved only in projected memory.

Foreshadowing: The wax theater returning to light echoes Miss Shu's original act of granting cinematic dreams.

• shu
• funeral
• monster garbs
• wax theater
• cinema
• melting figures

The film explores a world where humanity traded dreams for longevity, making the Deliriant, a being who preserved the capacity to dream, a hunted anomaly. Through multiple lifetimes, the Deliriant experiences love, loss, and transformation, with cinema serving as the language to express what life cannot sustain. The ending suggests that while the Deliriant dies, his essence achieves transcendence through art, dreams outlasting the dreamer.

Foreshadowing: Each life cycle demonstrates that dreams persist even as physical forms are lost.

• dreams
• immortality
• cinema
• transcendence
• art
• memory