''La Chinoise'' is a loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1872 novel ''The Possessed (novel)''. In the novel, a group of five disaffected citizens, each representing a different ideological persuasion and personality type, conspire to overthrow the Russian imperial regime through a campaign of sustained revolutionary violence. The film, set in contemporary Paris and largely taking place in a small apartment, is structured as a series of personal and ideological dialogues dramatizing the interactions of five French university students — three young men and two young women — belonging to a radical Maoist group called the "Aden Arabie Cell" (named for the novel, ''Aden, Arabie'', by Paul Nizan).