Tamir is a young and talented boxer, brought up and trained by his grandfather. In the capital Ulan Bator, he then joins the national boxing team. Coach Bold has high hopes for the young athlete and subjects him to severe training. However Tamir becomes entangled in the nets of Sarangue, Bold's daughter, and that doesn't do his career any good at all. The privileged Sarangue spends her time with a provocative and violent bunch of youths who are obsessed by Western consumer goods. To defy her father, Sarangue encourages Tamir, who is by now hopelessly in love with her, to stay up late, to drink a lot and neglect his training. The boxing team leaves for Europe without Tamir, but Sarangue dumps Tamir for a French anthropologist. When a former lover of Sarangue is then killed, the bitter Tamir is arrested as a suspect; now he no longer feels like one of the privileged.
