Danny Hogan, Writer 

Sloan Grant(s) Received: 2024, The Black List, Screenwriting Fellowship

Project Type: Feature 

Genre: Drama

Length: 111 pages 

Field of Science: Biology

Stage: Development 

Synopsis: 

On the remote island of Koh Rong, Cambodia, MARLOW NORTH, 30s, Vietnamese-American, a former USAF special reconnaissance operator gone AWOL on a mission gone bad, ekes out a living guiding local eco-tourism experiences and throwing Muay Thai fights for crooked bookies. But his life in hiding is upended when an ambitious wildlife biologist, DR. EMMA WALTERS, recruits him to guide her research team on an off-the-books research expedition deep into the treacherous jungles along the Cambodia/Vietnam border. The biodiversity of Southeast Asia here has been annihilated from development pressures and the insatiable demand for exotic animal products. But the last living tiger in the region was recently ID’d by Emma’s camera traps, and her research suggests the tiger holds the key to a major medical discovery that could lead to an end to Dengue Fever. She is determined to find the tiger before anyone else with more nefarious purposes can. If the tiger is lost, so too is this medical breakthrough. Forever.

As Marlow’s past life begins to catch up with him, he sees this opportunity as a chance to stay one step ahead of his past. He takes the job. And as he learns more about the details of what they’re after, we meet the rest of the team: A former local ranger named CHIN, a big game Australian veterinarian, DR. KERR, and a mysterious security contractor, SEAU. But everyone on this expedition has something they are hiding. Emma fails to mention her funding is coming from a major pharmaceutical company; essentially using her to enact biopiracy by taking this discovery from the local people’s land. But in her mind, this is the only way to protect a much greater good for humanity than what would otherwise soon be gone, and she chooses the utilitarian rationale. But she will grapple with consequences of this moral dilemma.

After they embark up the Srepok River and into the heart of darkness, they inadvertently interfere with a sophisticated poaching operation after the same tiger. The man in charge of this outfit, our antagonist, MOK, 50s, is a dark shadow of Marlow. He is former Khmer Rouge, who’s been hiding in exile in these forests for the last 30 years. He’s had no choice but to survive (and thrive) off the black markets out here while in exile, but this priceless tiger is his ticket to a new life. He’s arranged with a major international trafficker in Vietnam to get him and his family a new middle-class identity over the border in exchange for delivering the tiger, which will inevitably be butchered for parts to sell for six-figures or more on the traditional medicine black markets in China and beyond.

And so, as these two forces collide, our second act pits the expedition against the poachers, the elements, and themselves—all within possibly the most dangerous environment on earth. Zhao ends up making a deadly mistake when they try to do the right thing, while Seau turns out to be here as a cover for allegiances with much more complicated interest groups, which leads to serious complications as outside geopolitical forces close in down the line.
Eventually Marlow and Emma are left to fend for themselves in this pseudo-war zone. Marlow is torn between finding meaning in saving this lone tiger—being hunted down much like he is—and staying free, while Emma is forced to face reality and grapple with the ethical sacrifices she’s made to do what she thinks is right.

As Marlow’s identity is exposed, he betrays Emma to protect his own freedom. Emma ends up finding her discovery she was after, but at the tiger’s expense as the tiger is captured by Mok. But Marlow arcs to reconcile with his sins, and realizes he has a responsibility to help those that can’t help themselves. He grapples with the larger themes of the film as a whole: What is the relationship between our sense of meaning and the planet’s own health? How does our alienation from nature fuel our struggle, our disillusionment, and our violence toward each other? And what is there to do in the face of such vast and complex systems of modernity?

Marlow, with a clear sense of purpose, and with the help of a big favor from his old unit that he went AWOL from years ago, returns to help Emma save the magnificent tiger from the trafficking trade at the sacrifice of his own freedom in one final rumble in the jungle.