We are in China in 1899, where European nations are vying for concessions from the emperor and the mandarins.
Russia, Germany, France, England, and Japan are in the running, rivals yet joining forces to construct the railway. The Boxers are stoking the revolt against foreigners.
We are in Shishan, Manchuria, where a young English woman leaves the mists of the Thames to reunite with her father in China.
She is romantic and sees love as a poetic ideal. Her fiancé is working on the railway construction, but she discovers love with another man. It could end there, like some kind of opera where love tears hearts apart, except there is much more at Shishan, including the luxury brothel where colonial society meets for pleasure and business.
The Palace of Divine Pleasures, that’s its name. All activity revolves around this establishment where the girls are more than just prostitutes. Then there is the slightly mad preacher, whose son runs away and finds himself at this establishment. Our heroine, still torn between two men, witnesses the life of this Manchurian town, its intrigues, and its dealings.
She will discover and let us discover this China at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, where everything is already in place with future clashes between Japan and Russia, between China and Japan. A very beautiful historical fresco with enchanting landscapes. The Palace of Divine Pleasures, a reading that is a pleasure in itself.
