Modernized “Madam Butterfly” story – an operatic fateful drama of a Vietnamese woman in connection with the Vietnam War.
1975 – Saigon – The American marine Chris meets the enchanting Kim, who belongs to a group of Vietnamese dance girls that the seedy “Engineer” has recruited for a nightclub in Saigon. She is a refugee girl from a village that was destroyed in the war and her parents died.
Miss Saigon 25th Anniversary Performance
Kim and Chris are in love and feel so connected that they get married according to Vietnamese custom. Kim’s friends arrange the ceremony. This is disturbed by the appearance of the Vietnamese Thuy, who vigorously asserts his claim to Kim. She was promised by her parents. The two men threaten each other with firearms, but Thuy escapes. Kim and Chris are happy even though disaster threatens, because the Viet Cong are about to conquer Saigon.
1978 – Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City. South Vietnamese abducted by the Viet Cong are returning after suffering a period of agonizing re-education in camps. Kim still lives in town, as does the “Engineer”. Chris, however, lives in America and is married to Ellen, an American.
Kim is visited by Thuy, who again demands that she become his wife. When he learns that she has a son from Chris, he is furious and wants to kill the American bastard. Kim saves her son by shooting Thuy with a revolver that Chris left with her.
She and her son Tam flee to the “Engineer”, who mourns the Americans and the better times and is determined to flee to the sea with a group of “boat people”. Kim joins him. They manage to escape to Bangkok.
Kim tries to contact Chris through the American embassy. He learns from his friend John that Kim is looking for him and that he has a son. His wife Ellen does not know about his Vietnamese love affair. John persuades him to go to Bangkok with Ellen and sort out the situation. In Bangkok, Kim learns of Chris’ presence. She remembers how they were separated in Saigon when the Viet Cong invaded the city. Chris tried to take her with him, but in the panic, all he could do was to flee the surrounded American embassy in the last helicopter.
Now Kim is happy to see him again. She tries to reach him at the hotel, but only meets his wife Ellen there. Now she knows how things are and she has to forget her great love. But her son is supposed to be an American! Chris and Ellen decide to give Kim and the child sufficient support for life in Bangkok. But Kim has made up her mind. Every Vietnamese dreams the “American Dream”, as does the “Engineer”. The dream should come true for her son. So that Chris and Ellen can take him to America, she dies.
Vietnam War
1946 – 1975 – First military confrontation between the French colonial power and militant communists in Vietnam. After the defeat of the French, the USA intervened and supported South Vietnam against the communist north. The war escalates, but then the Americans decide to withdraw because there is no clear victory to be achieved. In 1975 the North Vietnamese Viet Cong advance into the South Vietnamese capital Saigon. The last American troops are flown out of the embassy in helicopters – the Viet Cong bring all of Vietnam under communist rule.
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