• Director(s):

    JALLOT (Nicolas)

  • Producer(s):

    ARTE FRANCE, LADYBIRDS FILMS

  • Territories:

    Worldwide.

  • Production year:

    2012

  • Language(s):

    German, English, French

  • Rights:

    TV, DVD, NON-THEATRICAL, INTERNET, VOD

From an extraordinary true-life story, discover the life of an ordinary spy. A discreet, low-level French civil servant is manipulated by the Chinese secret services and becomes a spy out of sheer love. 

How is it possible to suddenly plunge into a world of betrayal , manipulation and lies ? And at what price ?
In January 1964, President Charles de Gaulle announces the French Government is recognizing the People's Republic of China. A month later, France becomes the first Western power to open an embassy in Beijing since the Korean War and 20-year-old Bernard Boursicot arrives to serve as French embassy accountant.

June 30, 1983. On a busy commercial street in Paris, French Secret Service arrests Boursicot together with his wife, the Bejing opera singer Shi Pei Pu. The ordinary civil servant is in reality a spy who worked for Chinese Intelligence for the last 20 years. But this is not the whole story: The same day, Boursicot is told that his wife with whom he lived for twenty years is ... a man! Overnight, the incredible story is catapulted on international stage. It will inspire David Henry Hwang to write M. Butterfly, a hit Broadway play, and David Cronenberg to direct a movie of the same title, starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone. But the real story was never told, both Shi Pei Pu and Boursicot always refused to explain...