In the little Filipino village of Oslob, people suffer from the scourge of typhoons and overfishing. Things seem bleak for fisherman Zosimo and his family until the world's biggest shark, the whale shark, comes along and changes everything. One day, a tourist asks to join Zosimo on the boat to take photos of the sharks. Once the pictures appear on the Internet, the lives of Zosimo, his children, and all of those living in the region get turned upside down.