A woman looks pensively at the camera, her dark hair blowing across her face in the wind. This is a recurring image in Zi, Kogonada’s ethereal new science fiction drama that recently debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. Is it a fragmented memory? A glimpse of what is to come? Or perhaps it is both?
This central mystery drives the film’s unusual sci-fi narrative, where a woman begins to have glimpses of her own future. The minimal plot and freeform structure let Kogonada delve into the contemplative, existential themes he is known for, marking Zi as a refreshing comeback following the director’s ambitious but awkward previous film. Although Zi may feel too delicate to have great weight, it is undoubtedly memorable.
Zi opens with the titular young woman (Michelle Mao) at her parents’ gravesite in Hong Kong, grieving her perceived inadequacies. In a trance-like state, she then drifts through the crowded city until she collapses in tears on a secluded stairway. A worried stranger named Elle (Haley Lu Richardson) approaches, but Zi only stares back with a mix of bewilderment and alarm. She recognizes Elle from a vision, standing beside a woman who resembled her. This sparks Zi’s suspicion that she is foreseeing her future self. However, she doubts any paranormal power, instead blaming the episodes on a possible brain tumor identified earlier at a neurology center. Elle, growing more concerned, suggests visiting her neurologist friend, Min (Jin Ha). This decision sets the trio on a meandering, surreal trek through Hong Kong, where their histories and current lives weave together and clash.
Unfolding as a deliberate, all-night wander, Zi prioritizes atmosphere over conventional narrative. The story progresses through the strained, deeply personal exchanges between Zi, Elle, and Min, and through elusive imagery like the repeated close-up of Zi. These visions—including one of an older woman consoling an aged Zi—serve as fragments for her to assemble. Some materialize that very night, while others remain distant possibilities. They are not tied to a grand scheme, aside from Min’s diagnosis of “temporal relativism.” Instead, they form the film’s hazy essence of captured instants and elapsed time, echoing the splintered character study Kogonada crafted so masterfully in After Yang. In Zi, however, this portrait is even more deliberately ambiguous.
The film’s sparse storyline is intentional, born from an experimental approach. Kogonada conceived the project by inviting six close collaborators—including the cast and his cinematographer Benjamin Loeb and producers Chung An and Christopher Radcliff—to fund their own trip to Hong Kong with only a basic concept and a minimal budget. They shaped the film during production, completing Zi in just three weeks.
Following his challenging encounter with the visual excess of Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Kogonada seems more comfortable in the delicate Zi, which acts as a photographic inverse of Journey. It is understated instead of grandiose, quiet rather than dramatic, and modest where the other was bold. Yet, like Journey, which channeled inspirations such as Hayao Miyazaki, Zi draws from other directors—the vivid lyricism of Wong Kar-wai or the relaxed charm of Richard Linklater’s hangout films. Kogonada’s affectionate observation of Hong Kong’s pace and populace, captured by Loeb’s almost documentary-like lens, strongly evokes Wong. Meanwhile, Zi‘s emphasis on fleeting, enigmatic images and the persistent recurrence of one specific memory—imprinted on both the protagonist and the viewer—most directly recalls Chris Marker’s 1962 short La jetée, the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys.
The fact that Zi feels like a series of cinematic tributes is not a flaw, but it does further connect it to Journey: both films represent Kogonada’s effort to blend his influences into a cohesive personal style. Zi indicates he is moving nearer to that objective.
Because Zi is such a personal character study, deeply reliant on the private moments shared by Zi, Elle, and Min, it leaves a lasting impression despite its lightness. Mao portrays a beautifully fragile and disoriented figure, while Richardson confirms her status as Kogonada’s most dependable screen partner, bringing a poignant playfulness that shines through even the most conspicuously artificial wig. Ha serves as a steady, compassionate grounding force as Min, who harbors quiet feelings for Elle while attempting to caution Zi about her predicament.
“For you, it’s always the past,” he tells Zi. This applies to her character and to the film itself, which already seems like a fleeting glimpse of a vanishing era and locale, created through a method that is itself becoming rare. It represents lo-fi science fiction at its most effective and enduring.