Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a midwife at a London hospital, finds a Russian-language diary on the body of a Tatiana, a fourteen-year-old girl who dies in childbirth. She also finds a card for the Trans-Siberian restaurant, which is owned by Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a boss in the Russian Mafia or vory v zakone ("thieves in law").

A visual feast combining ancient mysticism, cyberpunk sensibilities, flamboyant entertainment personalities, and gun-toting alien mercenaries. In the 23rd century, Korben Dallas, an ex-special forces agent who now practices as a down-and-out cabbie, finds himself caught in a struggle to defy a prophesied Evil from destroying the Earth when a mysterious woman falls into the back seat of his cab.

Two French policemen, one investigating a grisly murder at a remote mountain college, the other working on the desecration of a young girl's grave by skinheads, are brought together by the clues from their respective cases. Soon after they start working together, more murders are committed, and the pair begin to discover just what dark secrets are behind the killings.