Much like Lewis Carroll’s fantastical heroine, the trio of slackers at the centre of Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Alice in Borderland are a group of people whose imaginations are almost too big to fit into their current realities, and so they delight in flights of fancy that pull them out of the humdrum of their everyday lives.
Based on the manga of the same name by Haro Aso, Alice followed Ryōhei (Kento Yamazaki), Daikichi (Keita Machida), and Chōta (Yûki Morinag), three friends who suddenly step out onto the streets of Tokyo and into a world seemingly devoid of other human life following a mysterious power outage. None of them understand exactly what’s happening, but they choose to follow their instincts and gravitate towards one of the few stores that seems to still have power. But rather than answers, what the trio find inside are a set of cell phones as well as Saori (Ayame Misaki), a woman who seems to know more about the predicament they’ve all stepped into — and a strange, deadly world known as Borderland.
In the same way that Alice began her journey into Wonderland following directions, Ryōhei, Daikichi, Chōta, and Saori learn that the only way to make it deeper and survive in Borderland is to listen to their phones carefully as they’re pulled into into a series of strange games all overseen by Borderland’s megalomaniacal ruler. Few resemblances as Borderland might bear to Wonderland, it proves to be just as strange and dangerous a place that, if Borderland’s heroes aren’t careful, could end up bringing their lives to an end.
Alice in Wonderland hits Netflix on December 10.