The story is told from the perspective of former conscript Ivan Yermakov (Alexei Chadov), a defendant in a pre-trial detention facility who is giving an interview to a journalist.

One day, Aslan also captures two actors from England: John Boyle (Ian Kelly) and his fiancée Margaret Michaelsen (Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė).

After a while, Ivan and the actors are transported to another village and put in a dungeon, where they meet Captain Medvedev (Sergei Bodrov, Jr.), paralyzed as a result of a shrapnel wound to the spine.

John's efforts to raise money are unsuccessful, but one of the English television companies provides him with £200,000 in exchange for detailed video footage of the operation.

In Moscow, John encounters complete indifference from military officials and decides to ask Ivan to help him free Margaret.

After passing through Moscow and Vladikavkaz, Ivan and John secretly enter Chechnya, along the way capturing an SUV with a large amount of weapons in the trunk.

While Ivan and Ruslan shoot the guards with the weapons they seized earlier on the road, John discovers Margaret in a pit completely naked and assumes that she was raped by the militants.

Gugayev's militants organize a shelling of the village and a pursuit, but the group escapes on a makeshift raft and takes up defensive positions in an old fortress tower.

Aleksei Balabanov wrote the scenario for the film in 1998. after he saw on television the severed heads of English specialists who worked in Chechnya.

So, while we were living in the mountains, for some reason I didn’t wear a striped shirt.The film was shot in Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Chechnya, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tobolsk, and London.

The scene with actress Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė floating naked in a cold rapid was filmed without using a stunt double.

After that, an ethnic conflict almost broke out between the film crew and local residents, but among the SOBR officers guarding the group was a former Chechen captain, Kyuri, who was able to stop the angry crowd.