Miss Saigon

The creators of Les Miserables have taken the plot of the opera Madame Butterfly and set it in the closing days of the Vietnam War. The star-crossed lovers are Chris, an American serviceman, and Kim, a Vietnamese girl with whom Chris falls in love. The brief love affair is torn apart by the war, leaving Kim with a son by Chris. Chris, thinking Kim dead, returns to America and marries Ellen. When he learns that Kim is alive and has a son by him, he and Ellen return to Vietnam as the war reaches its final calamitous days. Chris and Kim find each other, but they are helpless to prevent the inevitable tragedy that the war and circumstances bring down on them.