In 1960s China, French diplomat Rene Gallimard falls in love with an opera singer, Song Liling - but Song is not at all who Gallimard thinks.

The wife's affair and a death in the family hasten the demise of an upper-class English marriage.

George Trent (James Willis), a British spy, has gone incommunicado in Ibiza. Appleton Porter (Donald Sutherland) is sent to find out what happened to Trent. Porter settles into a small hotel with several busybody guests. He probes...