Not since Iron and Silk premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991 has a movie based on a memoir about teachers on the front lines of U.S.-China relations come to the big screen. Director Shirley Sun’s mostly-English-language film adaptation of Mark Salzman’s 1986 book—in which the author played himself—grossed just over $350,000 and was never released in China. It was a film ahead of its time.