The soft wool of a rare Tibetan antelope, the chiru, has been so highly prized that the animal which numbered some million in 1900 is threatened with being hunted to extinction. There is only way to harvest the animal's wool, known as "shahtoosh": it has to be killed. It typically takes three animals just to make a shawl. International trade in shahtosh has been banned since 1975, however policing the Chiru's remote natural habitat in the high Tibetan plateau called Kekexili (pronounced Cur-cur-shee-lee) was left for a long time up to underresourced, volunteer game wardens.

Writer-director Lu Chan's tense, human drama picks up events in 1993, when one of the wardens was murdered by poachers and a photo journalist from Beijing, Ga Yu, travelled to the remote region to cover the story. Here at nose-bleed altitude, he joins a retired army officer, Ritai (Duo Bujie, the only well-known actor in a convincing cast of mostly non-professionals), and his rugged band of Tibetans in a cat-and-mouse game with the poachers.

The film is both an action and a survival story rolled into one. The inhospitable beauty of the sparce landscape, captured in stunning cinemascope, sets the film apart. As doggedness turns to obsession, Ritai's men push deeper in their little jeeps into the frozen landscape, the dangers multiplying all the time. Diminishing fuel supplies and provisions raise the spectre that, stranded days away from nearest civilisation, they could die in the snowy wasteland.

The naturalistic performances of Lu Chan's cast works to the film's benefit. The story of sacrifice, of both men and beast, when combined with the desolate scenery creates a haunting atmosphere.

There is a silver lining of sorts: the Chinese government decided to start policing the region professionally after the young journalist filed his reports in Beijing. However, poaching of the chiru still continues to be a problem. When you see the landscape you will see why.