During World War II a secret agent must seduce, then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.

There are three stories of women and men: in “A Time for Love” set in 1966, a soldier searches for a young woman he met one afternoon playing pool; “A Time for Freedom,” set in a bordello in 1911, revolves around a singer’s longing to escape her surroundings; in “A Time for Youth” set in 2005 Taipei, a triangle in which a singer has an affair with a photographer while her partner suffers is dramatized. In the first two stories, letters are crucial to the outcome; in the third, it’s cell-phone calls, text messages, and a computer file. Over the years between the tales, as sexual intimacy becomes more likely and words more free, communication recedes.

Kai (Jack Yao), who works at his parent’s noodle shop by day and spends his nights in a bookstore to learn French, decides to go to Paris after his girlfriend, who recently left for Paris, dumps him by phone. Then the local neighborhood mafia boss offers Kai a free plane ticket to Paris if he takes a mysterious package with him.

Introverted Weichung has been married to Feng for nine years. They have one son together, and Feng would like to have another child with him. One day Stephen, an old friend who now organises weddings, appears and encourages Weichung to return to the gay life he had previously. Anxious not to lose his wife, Weichung tentatively begins seeing a flight attendant behind Feng’s back.