The film is liberally inspired by the period when Eça de Queiroz was Portuguese Consul to Cuba, when still a Spanish colony. Eça de Queiroz struggles against local authorities in his defence of Chinese workers, brought to the sugar plantations by greedy middle-men and exploited as slaves. Two parallel stories unfold: that of a Chinese girl Eça de Queiroz saves from the clutches of one of the island’s most powerful slave owners, and that of a romance involving a young American woman on holiday in Havana.