Teenage boy Tsog lives in the slums outside Ulan Bator. He sells milk from his neighbor to support his family, with whom he frequently quarrels. The flight of his imagination is Tsog's only solace— he spends hours drawing his hero, a young monk. After a fight with his parents Tsog takes off to the city, where he settles on the roof of an apartment building. From this new vantage point he spots a beautiful but troubled young woman inhabiting a nearby penthouse. Seeking to intertwine their fates— to bridge the gap between their social, economic, and spiritual conditions— Tsog steals a remote which he uses to control the young woman's television set.

A big city detective Davaa is summoned to the Mongolian hinterlands because of a most unusual hostage situation. When Davaa arrives he finds himself surrounded by local police and officials who mock the situation and seem bizarrely frivolous in their duty to the hostages being ransomed for 1 billion Mongolian tugrik a person. This Ransom is an oddly precise sum related to a travesty of justice that tragically unfolds.