In Japanese-occupied Korea in 1925, Chun Man-duk, a revered hunter, lives with his teenage son, Seok, in a hut on Mount Jirisan. Retired from hunting due to a tragic accident in which he killed his beloved wife, he has become an herb gatherer. The Japanese military governor is obsessed with killing the last remaining tiger in Korea, an enormous and greatly feared male that lives on the mountain. That Man-duk killed the tiger's mate, which resulted in the demise of her young cubs. Gu-kyung is the ruthless leader of a band of Korean hunters that attempt to track and kill the tiger for a bounty. Seok joins one of these hunts, in hopes of earning a bounty sufficient to provide for the girl he aspires to marry; during the hunt, Seok is mortally wounded by the tiger. After several failures, soldiers of the Japanese army are dispatched to participate in escalating efforts to find and kill the tiger, and several attempts are made to enlist Man-duk to facilitate the hunt, all of which he resolutely resists. Hunter and tiger, now both bereft of mates and offspring, meet at the mountain top where they commit a mutual suicide by diving over a cliff.