Directors Keif Davidson and Richard Ladkani spent 16 months undercover along with their crew and several subjects investigating the killing of elephants for their tusks and the smuggling of ivory to China, where it is seen as a status symbol.

The film takes its viewers from Tanzania, Kenya, and Zambia to China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, briefly stopping in London.

The film opens in Tanzania, Africa, where Elisifa Ngowi, the head of intelligence for the Task Force, along with his officers, are conducting a nighttime sting operation in an attempt to arrest Shetani, one of the most notorious poachers in the region.

While Ngowi is tracking Shetani and the poachers, Craig Millar, head of security at the Big Life Foundation in Kenya, is trying to stop poaching from happening in the first place.

[3] TheWrap stated that The Ivory Game vitally offers a wealth of information and means to incite action, which may be enough to get audiences involved".

[9] Poacher Boniface Methew Malyango, nicknamed "The Devil Has No Mercy", who has been connected to 15 poaching gangs across 5 countries, and has poached around 1,000 elephants, and supplied ivory to Yang Fenglan, who was the subject of this documentary, his brothers Lucas Mathayo Malyango and Abdallah Ally Chaoga were arrested on October 29, 2015[10] while attempting to smuggle 118 elephant tusks worth over $863,000.