Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) and Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) are a pair of brothers who grew up together. One of them plays the male role and the other plays the female role. They have always cooperated perfectly, especially in the play "Farewell My Concubine", which is well-known in Beijing. For this reason, the two agreed to perform "Farewell My Concubine" together for the rest of their lives. However, the two have fundamentally different understandings of the relationship between drama and life. Duan Xiaolou knows that drama is not life, while Cheng Dieyi does not distinguish between people and drama. Duan Xiaolou married the famous prostitute Juxian (Gong Li) when he thought he should get married and start a family, which made Cheng Dieyi believe that Juxian was a shameful third party and made Duan Xiaolou a traitor. Since then, the love-hate battle between the three people around the play "Farewell My Concubine" has been escalating with the changes of the times, and finally led to tragedy.