Pirates of the 20th Century

A convoy rolls into a Middle East seaport near the Nezhin. The Soviet ship carries medical opium destined for USSR hospitals. An agent from a local pharmaceutical company meets the Nezhin's captain to discuss the cargo. The agent is later seen in a car, speaking to someone on a walkie-talkie as the ship leaves port bound for Vladivostok.

A watchman cries 'man overboard' and the captain halts the engines to rescue the swimmer. The Nezhin's boat salvages an Asian man who identifies himself as Salekh, the sole survivor of a foreign merchant ship. Salekh explains his vessel capsized in a storm and his crew perished.

Salekh reports the encounter with a drifting unknown ship, the Mercury. The captain decides to send four sailors to examine Mercury and offer help to any survivors. Salekh's story adds tension as a potential double-cross.

While the exploration party waits aboard Mercury, Salekh seizes the Nezhin's radio room and kills the radio operator, destroying the equipment. With communications down, Mercury's engines begin to approach the Nezhin, signaling impending attack.

The Nezhin is rammed by Mercury as pirates board with rifles and machine guns. The pirates brutally slaughter Russians who resist, and the boarding party splits up to secure the vessel.

Sergey, the chief-mate, discovers the dead radio operator and resolves to pursue Salekh through the ship. Salekh demonstrates martial arts prowess and quickly defeats Sergey.

Pirates lock remaining Russians into crew compartments and begin to offload the opium from Nezhin to Mercury. The captain’s crew is sidelined as the cargo is moved for profit.

The surviving crew escapes into a lifeboat and eventually drifts to a small island. The pirates have taken over a nearby fishing village, establishing control over the area.

On the island, the crew encounters a fisherman's daughter who agrees to help them fight back. Together they devise a plan to retake the pirates' boat and reclaim some control.

Under cover of darkness they board the pirates' boat and engage in a firefight, ultimately taking it over. They discover the pirates' stash of cash hidden in the captain's safe.

A later meeting reveals the pirates hold an essential radio piece and have kidnapped two of the crew. The group negotiates a trade: return the ship in exchange for the hostages and a speedboat.

During the negotiations, the speedboat's engine dies, exposing that the pirates sabotaged it to prevent escape. The crew scrambles to fix it as time runs out.

Sergei boards the pirates' ship to force the radio operator to send a distress signal with coordinates. He then heads to the engine room and sets the engines to full astern, crashing the ship into rocks and killing all the pirates.

Having dealt with the pirates, the survivors return to the speedboat and repair its engine. They head out to open sea while the fisherman's daughter waves goodbye from the island cliffs.

The final scene lingers on the open sea as the survivors sail away. The fisherman's daughter watches them depart, signaling a bittersweet end to their ordeal.