Jeremy Irons stars as French civil service officer René Gallimard, a man who falls in love with an enigmatic Chinese opera singer (John Lone), in director David Cronenberg's adaptation of David Henry Hwang's Broadway stage play. Set in the midst of China's Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the film includes several allusions to "Madama Butterfly," Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera that inspired Hwang's play.