It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

Our narrator is an unseen local videographer, who tells the story of star-crossed lovers Mardar and Moudan. Mardar is a motorcycle courier in Shanghai who meets and falls in love with Moudan, but when he becomes involved in a plot to kidnap and hold her for ransom, Moudan is heartbroken. Devastated by his betrayal she throws herself into the Suzhou River, apparently to her death, threatening only to come back and haunt him. Mardar vows to find her and soon becomes obsessed with a nightclub dance find out more...