In the midst of a crisis, a washed-up American magician and his precocious estranged daughter venture into the New Zealand wilderness in search of a mythical black panther.11-year-old Mildred's world is turned upside down when her estranged father, the washed-up magician Strawn Wise, comes to look after her and agrees to take her camping to find a mythological beast known as the Canterbury Panther.