John (Jeremy Allen) is a British photographer who has lived in Hong Kong for many years; his friend Jim (Robin Breeze) often patronizes his apartment. John is infatuated with the bar owner's girlfriend Vivian (Gong Li is acted the role of), but has been rejected by her. Just as Hong Kong returned to China, John found himself suffering from a strange form of leukemia and had only a few months to live. So John, Jim, and a mysterious woman they met on the street, Jean (Maggie Cheung), began to shoot Hong Kong everywhere with a camera to capture the real Hong Kong at the last minute of Hong Kong's return to the motherland.