Under the lasting impact of the Second Red Scare and the rise of Maoism in China, Kevin is assigned to investigate San Franciscan Chinatown resident activities to root out sympathizers with the newly Communist Chinese state.

Kevin ultimately gives into pressing the charges at the berating of his superior and being goaded by appeal of nationalism upon trying to officially drop the case, which sends the three men to prison on indictment.

As the three men from the case in 1952 are released from prison, Ron orders Kevin to continue surveillance on Chen Jung Song, who is considered the "ringleader" of the trio.

All throughout his surveillance, Chen suffers from poor public face throughout Chinatown, being denied a raise in pay at his old laundromat, and is shunned by the Chinese American community.

Six years later in 1968, Kevin is assigned a new partner, Agent Byrd, and is tasked with the job of keeping watch on prolific pro-minority race revolutionary groups by the then dean of UC Berkeley and by orders of Ron and J. Edgar Hoover, specifically the Pro Asian Empowerment Movement, headed by Japanese American Bradley Ichiyasu, and whose members also includes Marilyn Song, who is considered a powerfully influential member of the group for her history and is romantically involved with Ichiyasu.

In The Austin Chronicle, critic Marjorie Baumgarten wrote, Screenwriter David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) never arrives at a consistent tone for his story.

Director [John] Madden (Ethan Frome) is no big help on this score as characters trudge along toward their inevitable destinies with no sizable input or control visible from his end.