It's 1980s in Saigon. Linh Phung is a star of a traveling Cai-luong (traditional folk opera) troupe deep in debt to a local loan shark. Dung "thunderbolt" is the enforcer come to collect. After an unlikely bond forms between the two, Linh Phung learns how a lived life is necessary for art and Dung follows art back to a life worth living.