Circa 1853, at an undisclosed locale in Eastern Europe, two sweaty, dirty and muscular brothers, Jakub (Adrien Jolivet) and Vladimir ((Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) - both fire-breathing brutes of an almost subhuman order - participate in tortuous hazing as they undergo Cossack initiation rituals. During Vladimir's attempt to swipe a Cossack horse with a third brother (the slightly gentler Elias (François-Rene Dupont)), thug Roman (Gregoire Colin) murders Vlad; the hell-bent Jakub then embarks, cross-country, on a violent mission of revenge, wielding deadly weapons and vowing to annihilate Roman's own siblings. Micha Wald directed the French-language Voleurs de chevaux and authored the original script.