After a brief introduction of the endangered Siberian tiger, the film begins in the snowy Russian winter of December 1997. Russian animal activist Yuri Trush (Brad Pitt), head of a Russian tiger conversation unit, is sent to investigate on the killing of poacher Vladimir Markov by a highly intelligent and vicious Siberian tiger which possesses "the agility of a cat and the mass of an industrial refrigerator". Before long, the beast strikes again, and Trush finds himself forced to hunt this animal through the brutal cold of the Siberian winter, becoming intimately acquainted with the tiger's history, motives, and unique method of attack â?? until their harrowing final encounter.