Colosseum

Kagan is a kickboxer, a heavyweight champion. Right after a fight he drives through the night, his face still swollen, his knuckles still bruised. On his car radio he can hear the commentators blabbing, less concerned with the actual fight, more concerned with Kagan’s recent change of allegiance when he decided to represent the Dutch flag, instead of the Turkish flag, the flag of his parents’ home country. Kagan is sick and tired of this kind of expectations. He just wants to be judged by his feats inside the ring, like any other fighter.

When a moment of inattention causes him to damage his car, Kagan decides to make a stop in a nearby town, just to get away from it all. He pulls over at a local pub in the middle of nowhere, where a tense first encounter with the local clientele awaits him. This tension is somewhat subverted by Faas, a peculiar fellow who seems amicable and menacing at the same time. Faas, ostensibly very interested in the outside world, appears to be fascinated with Kagan, his profession, his physique and, most notably, his background. Kagan, albeit hesitantly at first, slowly opens up to this talkative villager, as they enjoy more and more of the local booze. As both men exchange wits and views a genuine connection seems to be forming between two individuals from two different sides of the tracks.

However, when Kagan starts to feel a little lightheaded, he decides on leaving the pub, the place he initially ran away to. In a horrifying turn of events Faas and the rest of the villagers turn out to be conspiring against him; he is thrown to the floor, shocked with a cattle prod and quickly overpowered. Then everything goes dark, he loses consciousness. When Kagan awakes he is chained to the floor in what appears to be a darkened rodeo pit. Here the manic villagers force him to face off with a monstrous bull.