After his concentrated bird surveying causes his boat to capsize, the unconscious Fernando is washed ashore and rescued by two young, seemingly innocent female Chinese pilgrims, who are lost on their way to Santiago de Compostela. Thereafter, the film bends genres and busts taboos as Fernando is forced into extreme actions in order to survive a series of brutal, Stations-of-the-Cross-style tests, his metamorphosis observed all the while by the eerily placid gaze of the birds above.