At the centre of Peter Patzak's existentialist film noir stands the hopeless struggle against the arms mafia in Czechoslovakia and its connections with Austria after the fall of the iron curtain.

When a selfless king learns of a beautiful princess in a neighboring kingdom who callously turns down every suitor with an insult, he tries his luck to no avail. So, he hatches a plot with her father in which the princess is married to him, in disguise as a beggar, so he can teach her lessons about humility and compassion.