A.LI.CE 1999

In the year 2000, shortly after her best friend’s suicide, a Japanese schoolgirl named Alice wins a competition to become the youngest person ever sent into space aboard a semi-commercial space airline. But the mission goes awry when the shuttle crashes, leaving only Alice and the stewardess robot SS1X alive in a bleak, snowbound landscape. With nothing but the desolate whiteness around them, they set out to find help and survival.

They are soon aided by a young man, Yuan, who explains that they have landed in Lapland in the year 2030, a world with a dramatically reduced population of about one billion. At first, he doubts their claim of having traveled three decades into the past, but his skepticism gives way to cautious cooperation. Together they evade a pursuing army and begin to piece together a history hidden by time, scouring through old newspapers to understand how society ended up so emptied and degraded.

The backstory reveals a ruthless dictator named Nero and his chillingly efficient computer, SS10X, who have been systematically erasing people and sealing away survivors in decimated towns where technology has worn thin. The chilling threat is reinforced by the Liberation Army, a resistance movement that directly opposes Nero. When Alice, Yuan, and SS1X are captured, the plot thickens: there is a mysterious and intimate link between Alice and Nero’s computer, a bond that makes Alice uniquely capable of hacking the system and unraveling Nero’s security. The Liberation Army realizes they must disable the base defenses and mount a decisive strike to end Nero’s tyranny. Despite warnings about the personal danger, Alice volunteers to hack the computer, entering a perilous virtual space that lets her float through its circuitry while her mind endures excruciating strain. With the defenses temporarily down, the Liberation Army advances toward Nero’s fortress.

Meanwhile, Yuan and SS1X escape captivity and race against time to prevent Alice from pushing the hack too far. As the connection between Alice and Nero deepens, she voices a desire to finally meet Nero in person. The trio makes a perilous journey to Nero’s base, narrowly dodging reactivated security. The Liberation Army’s assault unfolds as the base’s automated defenses wipe out most of its fighters, leaving only its enigmatic leader, Kaspar alive.

[Kaspar] reveals a deeply personal motive: he sabotaged Alice’s flight by swapping the shuttle with a nearly identical craft that contained a hidden time machine. He believes Nero is the only other person capable of building a time machine, so he brings the past-hardened Alice to negate Nero before he can realize that dream. By removing Nero as the obstacle, Kaspar intends to manipulate history and secure his own godlike status.

Nero’s security system proves deadly but not invincible. It eventually impales Kaspar, though not before Kaspar fires into Nero’s colossal computer, triggering its slow collapse. The moment of truth arrives as Alice confronts Nero, who reveals a stunning truth: he is her son. He explains that she slipped into a coma soon after his birth, and his genius drive to communicate with her manifested in the machine he built—an instrument modeled on the SS1X framework she knew as the shuttle’s stewardess. This is why the computer can only respond to her mind.

The revelation casts a new light on everything: the very condition that has locked Alice to the machine is what makes her the only person able to hack it. In a haunting memory echo, the older Alice in the coma keeps repeating the last words of her late friend from 2000—the friend’s remark about the sky not being as blue as it should be due to overpopulation. The SS10X project, intended to shape the future, is born of this subconscious wish rather than a purely malevolent design. Nero’s dictatorship isn’t the sole cause of the wasteland; it originated from a hidden, psychic plan linked to Alice’s own mind.

As the colossal computer begins to fracture, Alice pleads with Nero to escape with her. He, having finally spoken to his mother, chooses to stay and die, finding peace in a revelation he did not expect. Alice escapes with Yuan and SS1X as the fortress crumbles, and the severed SS10X continues to spiral toward destruction. Deep within the machine’s core, the film offers a fleeting glimpse of the suspended, comatose older Alice.

Determined to alter the course of history, Alice returns to the year 2000 aboard a space shuttle equipped with the time machine, intent on preventing this bleak future. In parallel, SS1X uncovers data logs that point to the location of the seven billion missing people—including Yuan’s parents—and the chance to rescue them all. As the shuttle streaks back through time, Alice contemplates everything she has endured before succumbing to the fury of atmospheric re-entry. The craft lands safely in the ocean, and a rescue crew breaches the hull to bring her aboard. Regaining consciousness, she is greeted by a rescuer offering a hand, wearing a necklace identical to Nero’s. The story closes on her warm smile as she reaches for that outstretched hand, holding onto hope for a different future.