Resurrection of the Little Match Girl

A girl known as the Little Match Girl wanders the city’s cold streets, trying to sell her matches while passersby ignore her. Hunger gnaws at her as she lights a few matches to warm her hands, only to be rebuked and left with empty pockets. The scene ends with her collapsing on the icy sidewalk as the city remains indifferent.

Ju and his friend Lee entertain two young women in a bar, with Lee dominating the room as a charismatic StarCraft champion. Ju is more focused on the next meal than glory, dreaming of following in Lee’s footsteps and becoming a true gamer. He works as a delivery boy, facing scolding managers who mock his gaming ambitions.

The night spills into the arcade where Ju glimpses the Match Girl again. He buys a lighter from the arcade, the lighter bearing a phone number that invites him to a game called Resurrection of the Little Match Girl. He trails the girl from the city streets to riverboats, only to wake up back in front of the arcade with the lighter in his hand and the Match Girl nowhere to be found.

Inside the game, Ju discovers the premise: he must let the girl die, but she must die with the image of him as her beloved in her heart. The boundary between reality and fiction blurs as Ju is drawn deeper into a perilous labyrinth of choices that could alter both their fates and the city.

Ju meets a host of in-game figures who stand between him and the Match Girl. An organ harvester’s designs are foiled by a small gang and a rider of the road—Lara, a formidable gunslinger who becomes a recurring presence. Ju asks Lara to take him under her wing as a student, but she resists, leaving him to navigate the dangerous realm on his own.

A gang schemes to abduct the Match Girl, threatening her safety. Lara intervenes, but she is knocked unconscious in the struggle, and Ju’s desperate intervention saves her, deepening the danger surrounding them both as pursuers close in.

The System declares Ju a virus and begins hunting him throughout the game. The System’s designer reveals himself, hiding in the real world and appearing at the pier disguised as a fisherman. He offers cryptic guidance and hands Ju a crucial clue—a mackerel toy gun—that could turn the tide against the System.

With the designer’s help, Ju returns to the Match Girl and carries her to a restaurant seeking safety as soldiers close in. The next day, she wakes by Ju’s side and, emboldened, takes up the accompanying gun. She becomes a reluctant symbol of resistance, selling lighters anew while resisting those who would harm or reprogram her.

The Match Girl’s growing fame attracts further attempts by gangsters and soldiers to capture or reprogram her. The gang’s leader tries to manipulate her feelings and claims credit for a past murder, though the System had actually orchestrated the act, complicating loyalties and escalating peril.

Ju, guided by the designer and aided by Lara, launches a direct assault on the System itself. They use the mackerel as a weapon to breach the fortress, fighting through surreal landscapes and enemies. Lara is killed, and the Match Girl is captured and reprogrammed, becoming unrecognizable to Ju.

Ju reaches the System’s core and faces the altered world guarding the Match Girl. He must decide whether to abandon his humanity or risk everything for her. Though praised for his performance, he arrives too late—the Match Girl has been reprogrammed and does not recognize him. Ju sacrifices himself in a final bid, triggering a Game Over that sees him wake up as a delivery boy, the fantasy dissolving into ordinary life.

In an alternate version, Ju returns the lighter to the Match Girl, who then chases a butterfly out to the sea and fires a gun at the world. Ju dives after her, shoots the butterfly, and the world fractures. He awakens in an unknown place, living with the Match Girl who remembers nothing of her past, a liminal space between memory and oblivion.