The story is based on the urban legend surrounding Takako Konishi, and her search of the fictional ransom money seen buried in the snow from the 1996 film Fargo.

The only joys in her life come from her pet rabbit, Bunzo, and treasure hunting – which leads her to find a VHS copy of the film Fargo in a secluded cave on the shore.

Under threat of being replaced, a failed reconnection with an old friend, and her mother's increasing nagging, Kumiko abandons Bunzo on a train and boards a plane to Minneapolis using her boss's company card.

With a hand-stitched treasure map and a quixotic spirit, Kumiko embarks on a journey over the Pacific and through the frozen Minnesota plains to find the purported fortune.

The next morning, Kumiko emerges from the snow, and wanders through a hallucinatory landscape until she happens upon what appears to be the setting of the Fargo scene and sees the marker indicating the location of the treasure.

[16] The critics' consensus reads "Powerfully acted and lovely to look at, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter offers a treat for cinephiles with a taste for the pleasantly peculiar.

"[18] Todd McCarthy in his review for The Hollywood Reporter called the film "A work of rigorously disciplined eccentricity, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter is at once entirely accessible and yet appealing only to a rarified crowd ready to key into its narrow-bandwidth sense of humor.

"[19] Eric Kohn of Indiewire praised the film and said that "Striking a complex tone of tragedy and uplift at the same time, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter both celebrates the escapist power of personal fantasies and bears witness to their dangerous extremes.