The film uses a fictional narrative based on investigative reporting, and real footage, to capture gritty work at sea. It is part of a four-year investigation by The Outlaw Ocean Project that looks at human rights and environmental crimes on Chinese fishing ships and in Chinese processing plants, and how they connect to the global seafood market. This project concentrates on the geography that is the Ecuadorian waters near the Galápagos Islands because it is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet and is being jeopardized by overfishing. This project focuses on China because its distant-water fishing fleet is so large, so widely dispersed, and so notoriously brutal.