Synopsis
The film follows former-dolphin-trainer-turned-activist Ric O'Barry's quest to document the dolphin hunting operations in Taiji, Wakayama, Japan. In the 1960s, O'Barry helped capture and train the five wild dolphins who shared the role of "Flipper" in the hit television series of the same name. The show fueled widespread public adoration of dolphins and influenced the development of marine parks that included dolphins among their attractions.
According to O'Barry, one of the dolphins committed a form of suicide in his arms by closing her blowhole voluntarily in order to suffocate, after which he came to see the dolphin capture industry as cruel and inhumane. One day later, he was arrested off the island of Bimini for attempting to set free a captured dolphin. Since then, O'Barry has dedicated himself full-time as an advocate on behalf of dolphins around the world.
After meeting with O'Barry, Psihoyos and his crew travel to Taiji, Japan, a town that appears to be devoted to dolphins and whales. A group of local fishermen engage in dolphin drive hunting and generate tremendous revenues for the town by selling trapped dolphins to aquariums and marine parks around the world, with a premium paid for female bottlenose dolphins.
In an isolated cove surrounded by wire fences and "Keep Out" signs, an activity takes place that the townspeople attempt to hide from the public. The dolphins that are not sold are driven into the cove and killed, with only modest income derived from the sale of the meat to supermarkets throughout Japan.
All activists who attempt to view or film the dolphin killing in the cove are physically prevented from doing so by the fishermen, with the support of the local police and government, and the filmmakers are questioned by the authorities. Faced with this, Psihoyos, O'Barry, decide to covertly film what is taking place in the cove.
Inspired by a Japanese rock temple, the crew works with Industrial Light & Magic artists in order to create disguised rocks which can hide high-definition video cameras and military-grade thermal cameras. Under the cover of night, the film crew installs the cameras and audio-recording equipment throughout the cove. They also build a blimp drone with a gyroscoped camera that is used to take aerial footage of the cove after the massacre.
The local government officials are involved in helping to hide the slaughter, and the Japanese public is largely unaware of the hunt and the marketing of dolphin meat, which contains dangerously high levels of mercury. Two Taiji city councilors are interviewed who have advocated for the removal of dolphin meat from local school lunches due concerns about mercury.
The film shows several minutes of unedited footage of local fishermen trapping herds of dolphins and stabbing them one by one, causing all of the dolphins to die of blood loss. The entire cove turns deep red.
Near the end, Psihoyos shows some of the grisly footage he was able to film during a dolphin slaughter to a Japanese official, who had repeatedly tried to minimize the incident during his interview. The official's friendly demeanor hardens, and he asks Psihoyos when and where the footage was filmed.
The film also reports on Japan's alleged "buying" of the votes of poor nations in the International Whaling Commission, stating that Japan has rewarded nations with infrastructure projects in exchange for supporting it.
After Psihoyos shows the footage to the Japanese official, the film cuts to O'Barry interrupting the annual meeting of the IWC. As the Japanese delegate is saying how Japanese fishermen have made their whaling tactics more humane, O'Barry enters the crowded meeting room with a TV playing the footage from the cove strapped to his chest and walks around until he is escorted from the building. He then stands with the TV in a crowded intersection in Japan, where passersby stop to watch.
In a post-credits scene, the film crew is shown gifting the drone blimp to the local authorities.
