Rapa Nui

Long Ears rule the island with distinctive ear plugs and tattoos, while Short Ears toil under tighter controls. Each year, young men from both groups compete in the Birdman Competition to decide who will govern for the next year. The event establishes the island’s rigid hierarchy and sets the stakes for the entire community.

Ariki-mau has governed as Birdman for twenty years and believes the gods will arrive in a great white canoe to carry him to heaven. His advisor Tupa pushes him to build ever bigger moai to curry the gods’ favor. The king’s obsession with divine approval drives the island’s race for ritual power.

Ariki-mau publicly rejects the latest statue as too small, fueling the demand for an even bigger monument. The Short Ears are ordered to complete an oversized moai in an impossibly short time. The king’s fixation pushes labor to the breaking point and deepens the island’s dependence on the statues.

With resources diverted to statue-building, the Short Ears grow hungrier while the Long Ears continue to take the food quotas. The king’s advisor ruthlessly enforces the system, even killing a Short Ear fisherman who cursed a taboo fish. Fear and anger simmer beneath the surface as dissent edges toward open rebellion.

Noro, a Long Ear, and Ramana, a Short Ear, secretly fall in love despite their clans. Ramana’s banished father is a canoe maker who once visited the world beyond the island, a symbol of hope and danger. The romance tests loyalty to tribe and family while the island’s rules tighten around them.

Ariki-mau orders Noro to enter the Birdman Competition to preserve his rule. Noro asks if he can marry Ramana if he wins, and the king reluctantly agrees. Noro trains fiercely with Ramana’s banished canoe-maker father, who offers practical guidance and a stubbornly hopeful backstory.

Ramana is subjected to the Virgin’s Cave purification, a ritual justified by the advisor’s claim that her skin must be purified. She spends six months in darkness, catching a final glimpse of sunset before her confinement. The ritual isolates her from Noro and seals her fate within the island’s caste rules.

Noro persuades Ramana’s banished father to coach him; the canoe maker explains that he and Noro’s father were once friends and that he offered the canoe as a gift. He reveals that Noro's father sailed away after discovering a fragment of a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, challenging the belief that the island is the last safe haven. This backstory gives Noro a new source of hope and knowledge for the training.

Resource depletion worsens as moai construction consumes scarce wood and food, and the last tree is felled to keep up with the demands. The Short Ears grow hungrier and more frustrated while the Long Ears hoard dwindling supplies. Noro voices concern about the island’s limits, but his warnings fall on deaf ears.

Noro secretly brings food to his Short Ear friend Make and shares his plan to marry Ramana if he wins. Make reveals his own love for Ramana and reacts with painful jealousy, stepping away from their friendship. The trio’s emotions collide as Ramana remains trapped in the cave with no clear future.

After the death of Heki, the Short Ears demand half of the wood and food and the right to compete in the Birdman race. The King initially refuses, then cedes under pressure, insisting that the winner will be sacrificed if the Short Ears lose. Make accepts the Birdman role on the condition that he may marry Ramana if he wins.

Make commits to the Birdman training, spending all his time on the cliffside tasks and leaving no time for sleep or romance. He agrees to the condition of marrying Ramana if he wins, sealing his resolve to take the throne for his love. Meanwhile, the Short Ears devote themselves to completing the moai to prove their worth.

Nine competitors swim to the nearby islet, climb the cliffs, and must retrieve an egg from a sooty tern nest. The competition is brutal, and Noro pushes himself to the limit to win for his tribe. In the end, Noro barely returns first, securing another year of Ariki-mau’s rule.

Ramana is brought from the cave, pale and visibly pregnant, as an iceberg appears offshore. Ariki-mau believes the iceberg is the great white canoe of the gods and goes out toward it with followers. The advisor attempts a coup; Make kills him, and the Short Ears stage a rebellion, slaughtering and even eating the remains of the Long Ears. Noro alone survives as the others fall.

Noro, Ramana, and their baby escape the island in a canoe built by Ramana’s father, seeking a future beyond their homeland. A post-credits note states archaeological evidence links Pitcairn Island to their distant destination, offering hope that the family found a new land.