Kyle becomes determined to find out the meaning of his discovery after having a revelation at the airport. He manages to cause trouble with a powerful Cook Island family, forcing him to take some dangerous and extreme action. A rash decision is made by Budgie.
Tatau follows Kyle and Budgie, two twenty-something friends from London that set off to travel the world. Ahead of the journey, Kyle gets a Maori-style tattoo to celebrate their eventual destination: the Cook Islands.
When snorkeling in a lagoon, Kyle finds the dead body of a local girl, Aumea, tied up underwater. Returning to the lagoon with the police, Kyle finds her inactive person has disappeared. But Kyle knows what he saw. Desperate to uncover what happened, Kyle and Budgie find themselves sucked deeper and deeper into a world of Maori myths, symbols, and hallucinatory visions... until finally the full meaning of Kyle's tattoo is revealed.