Zi (2026) Movie Review: A Fragmentary Time Poem That Drifts Between Transcendence and Weightlessness

Zi represents writer-director Kogonada's creative reset following last year's disappointing A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, returning to the intimate, microbudget filmmaking that defined his celebrated debut Columbus. Premiering at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on January 24, this 99-minute drama-sci-fi hybrid from Fragmentia LLC features Michelle Mao as Zi, a young concert violinist in Hong Kong haunted by visions of her future self while awaiting neurological test results. When she encounters an American stranger named L or Elle, played by Haley Lu Richardson, their seemingly chance meeting initiates a 24-hour journey through the city alongside Elle's estranged fiancé Min, portrayed by Jin Ha.

Shot in three weeks with six close collaborators working from only a slender outline, the film emerged from Kogonada inviting his friends to Hong Kong to develop the project organically as they filmed. The result blurs the lines between hangout movie and tone poem, merging Before Sunset sensibilities with La Jetée's existential sci-fi to create something that either transcends narrative convention or becomes too wispy to sustain emotional weight, depending on your receptiveness to Kogonada's philosophical ambitions.

Story and Screenplay: Elliptical Construction Prioritizes Feeling Over Legibility

Kogonada's screenplay, developed collaboratively during production, opens with ethereal images of Zi experiencing herself as if detached from her body. The present seems to be sleeping away from her consciousness, creating difficulty determining whether experiences are memories or occurring in the moment. We learn her parents have recently passed away, and at their graveside she worries their faces might slip from her faltering memory. Her neurological ailments may account for unnerving out-of-body visions where she glimpses her future self, most frequently an image of being embraced by an older woman whose face remains obscured.

The narrative structure eschews conventional exposition in favor of immersive fragmentation. When Elle approaches the weeping Zi on concrete steps, the violinist insists they've already met, at least within her time-scrambled consciousness. The script implies something cosmically fated about their encounter, tangling it with Elle's relationship to Min, who works at the neurological clinic Zi will visit the next morning and has been observing her from a distance. These cryptic, temporally out-of-sync connections tease lo-fi supernatural elements that never fully take flight.

What follows is directionless wandering through bustling city centers and abandoned passageways, al fresco noodle shops and shabby karaoke bars, punctuated by earnest singing, unexpected fireworks, delicious food, and new connections. The destination constantly shifts as this evocative, ephemeral expedition plays out over both 24 hours and a lifetime simultaneously. Kogonada remains refreshingly uninterested in explaining exact reasons why events occur, rejecting what he's termed the "tyranny of narrative" in his critical video essays.

The screenplay's strength lies in its willingness to prioritize feeling over legibility, immersing viewers in quiet sadness and enduring joy rather than plot mechanics. When time folds in on itself near the conclusion, revealing the full picture of what we'd only glimpsed in flashes, the formal exploration achieves genuine emotional resonance for those willing to surrender to its rhythms.

However, the thinly drawn story suffers from weightlessness that prevents deeper engagement. The slender outline shows through the hazy approach, with characters lacking sufficient dimension to anchor the philosophical ambitions. Dialogue occasionally veers into banal overstatement, with Zi unnecessarily explaining she's "always felt untethered, detached, floating in this world" when the filmmaking language has already established that anxious drift. The narrative becomes draggy and repetitive, unformed in its intentions and as inarticulate as Zi herself about her untethered feelings.

Acting and Characters: Mao Breakout Performance Elevates Sketchy Conception

Michelle Mao delivers what should be a breakout performance for the ages, crafting the film's emotional shape and form through sympathetic portrayal of interior crisis. She finds shattering yet subtle notes of sadness alongside bittersweet jubilation, conveying Zi's condition through brittle body language and a deep, distracted gaze. In a melancholic, moving monologue near the end, Mao expresses how her character has always felt disconnected from the world, though what remains unsaid but deeply felt is that this night has connected her more than ever before. The performance operates largely in reactive mode, but Mao makes every flicker of recognition or disorientation register authentically.

Haley Lu Richardson brings her reliably charismatic presence as Elle, serving as a welcome animating force who crinkles her smile beneath a yellow dime-store wig while clearly carrying her own damage. Richardson embodies kindness and concern when approaching this stranger, offering to walk her across town despite Elle's own unsettled state in Hong Kong. Her tipsy, spirited wailing of Alanis Morissette's "One Hand in My Pocket" provides one of the film's most purely joyful moments. However, Elle remains even more sketchily conceived than Zi, with her hobby of recording and collecting city sounds feeling more like an extension of the director's interests than organic character development.

Jin Ha portrays Min as someone who followed Elle to Hong Kong despite bad memories and a broken engagement, working at the Center for Neurology while observing Zi from a distance. Ha brings warmth and gentleness to the role, though the character suffers from the screenplay's lack of dimension. His plaintive rendition of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" directed at Elle acquires cloying earnestness rather than poignancy, representing moments where the film finds life in the wrong ways.

The chemistry between all three performers benefits from genuine friendship, as these collaborators accepted Kogonada's invitation to create something together on their own dime. That off-screen connection translates to authentic bonding on screen, even when the script leaves their relationships underwritten.

Direction and Technical Aspects: Visual Poetry Meets Aimless Drift

Kogonada demonstrates the same delicate attunement to architecture and people living in its shadows that distinguished Columbus, capturing Hong Kong's curves and crevices as innately cinematic spaces. Working with frequent collaborator Benjamin Loeb, the cinematography achieves ethereal stream-of-consciousness quality through elliptical construction and unprettified but tactile warmth. The camera frequently shoots Zi from behind in the unfussy, handheld style of the Dardenne brothers, creating formally looser work than Kogonada's previous features while still finding marvelously framed shots when least expected.

Loeb picks out small pools of color against urban grayscale: Zi's cherry-red shoulder bag, intrusions of verdant foliage, the muted nighttime glow suffusing their wanderings. The visual approach procures each shot as part of a dreamlike continuum, standing on the border between subconscious feeling and reality. As editor, Kogonada merges tone poem and hangout movie into something unexpectedly moving, though the formal ambiguity sometimes makes viewers more aware of the thin story rather than losing themselves in atmosphere.

The production design captures Hong Kong's densely populated metropolis as ideally suited to the dreamlike quality Kogonada seeks. However, the direction occasionally becomes too studied in pursuing poetry that must happen organically. The film suffers by comparison to other recent dramas where walking-and-talking sequences transform a teeming city into an outsize presence, lacking the substance and lingering poignancy to fully justify its experimental approach.

Kogonada shatters expectations for what he's capable of by moving more unbound from narrative convention than ever before. This represents both the film's greatest achievement and its most significant limitation, as the radical creative freedom produces intermittent life rather than sustained emotional engagement.

Music and Atmosphere: Sonic Richness Compensates for Narrative Thinness

The sound design stands among the film's greatest achievements, with Zi thrumming with oceanic rush of traffic, patter and chatter of pedestrians, and delicate assertions of nature and weather against man-made noise. All these elements jostle for attention with Kogonada's typically elegant musical selections, running the gamut from liquid piano pieces by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, to whom the film is dedicated, to bristling electronica to Richardson's spirited Alanis Morissette performance.

The score evolves from sweet and peppy to something referencing different emotional registers as the night progresses. The rich sonic textures deserve theatrical presentation, as the film could often be absorbed with eyes closed while still providing rewarding sensory experience. If the larger message remains elusive, the audio advocates for taking the world in at your own pace.

The overall atmosphere achieves soothing rhythm in tracking a fast-building kinship between two young women feeling alone in a city that buzzes unfeelingly around them. The mood oscillates between quiet contemplation and moments of unexpected joy, though the cloud of melancholy occasionally becomes draggy when characters lack sufficient dimension to sustain interest.

Strengths and Weaknesses

What works well:

• Michelle Mao's breakout performance conveying interior crisis through subtle physical choices
• Benjamin Loeb's ethereal cinematography capturing Hong Kong as dreamlike space
• Exceptional sound design creating immersive sonic landscape
• Haley Lu Richardson's charismatic, animating presence
• Musical selections including Ryuichi Sakamoto pieces and spirited karaoke moments
• Kogonada's willingness to reject narrative tyranny and prioritize feeling
• Genuine chemistry between performers rooted in real friendship
• Visual attunement to architecture and urban spaces
• Final sequences where time folds in on itself to reveal larger pattern
• Radical creative freedom producing moments of transcendent emotion

What doesn't work:

• Thinly drawn story that shows through hazy atmospheric approach
• Characters lacking sufficient dimension to anchor philosophical ambitions
• Dialogue occasionally veering into banal overstatement
• Elle's character even more sketchily conceived than Zi
• Narrative becoming draggy and repetitive without clear direction
• Min's musical moments acquiring cloying earnestness rather than poignancy
• Too wispy to be compelling as narrative or fully enveloping as vibe
• Supernatural elements teased but never taking flight
• Poetry feeling studied rather than organic at times
• Weightlessness preventing deeper emotional resonance

Final Verdict: An Acquired Taste That Rewards Patient Viewers

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Zi represents Kogonada's palette cleanser after his larger-budget studio misfire, returning to essayist roots with experimental freedom that produces both transcendent moments and frustrating thinness. The film operates as radical throat-clearing purification, shot quickly with close collaborators to develop ideas organically without binding structures. This approach yields rich visual and sonic textures that deserve theatrical viewing, though the wispy narrative makes it strictly a fringe arthouse prospect.

This is essential viewing for anyone drawn to Kogonada's visual essayist sensibilities and philosophical approach to time and memory. Fans of Before Sunset's hangout aesthetic merged with La Jetée's existential sci-fi will find much to appreciate, particularly if willing to surrender to feeling over conventional storytelling. Those who embraced Columbus and After Yang while valuing experimental cinema that rejects narrative tyranny should seek this out despite its uneven execution. The film rewards viewers with high tolerance for ambiguity and fragmentation, especially those who appreciate sensory immersion over plot mechanics.

However, those seeking emotionally robust storytelling with fully dimensional characters will likely find Zi too insubstantial to sustain engagement. Viewers who need clear narrative arcs or character development beyond sketchy conception should look elsewhere, as the film prioritizes atmospheric drift over dramatic structure. If you struggled with Kogonada's more contemplative tendencies in previous work, this radical embrace of looseness will test patience further. The shoestring-budget, on-the-fly production shows through the final product in ways that either feel liberating or underdeveloped depending on your perspective.

Zi ultimately functions as a deeply divided work that either achieves overwhelming emotional resonance or drifts too weightlessly to matter, with little middle ground between those reactions. It's a film about time travel and existential questions that proves most urgently relevant when viewers unlock themselves to being swept up along with it, though that surrender requires receptiveness not everyone will possess. For those attuned to Kogonada's wavelength, this represents a return to form and shattering of expectations that finds his richest emotions yet through microbudget formal exploration. For others, it remains a well-intentioned misfire that exchanges one set of problems from his studio effort for an opposite set of limitations, confirming his talents while leaving you wishing for the substance of his earlier achievements.