Tolomush Okeev filmed the Kirghiz mountains and deserts with an intimate knowledge and the keenest sensitivity. The action in his films is always keyed to the landscape in a way that appears effortless, no matter how painstakingly wrought: he knows every crack, every crevice, all the cruelty and all the beauty of a life lived under the open sky. This film, written by Andrei Konchalovsky, is the story of a boy who raises a wolf cub, and learns quickly about savagery of both animal and human varieties. There are sequences here-a pack of wolves raiding a herd of sheep by night, a wolf hunt on horseback, and the snowscapes of the last section of the movie-that will make your hair stand on end. Warning: the film contains explicit scenes of violence to animals.