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...

A Chinese epic based around the rise and fall of General Pang who, on behalf of the ruling Qing dynasty, retook the cities of Suzhou and Nanjing during the unsuccessful Taiping Rebellion during the 1860s. The film starts with a beaten Pang meeting and allying with two bandits, Er-Hu and Wu-Yang, and forming the Shan Army. As they slash their way to victory they become the victims of their own disputes and rivalries and, with victory achieved, no longer the masters, but the wretched pawns in a bi find out more...