A series of intertwining tales involve "pleasure seekers and pleasure providers" during the course of one night in Geylang, Singapore's red-light district. There are three distinct stories, united only by the presence of characters from all the stories in a streetside eatery:
Yang Kuei-meiLinda
Ananda EveringhamChris
Loo ZihanJonathon
Katashi ChenKiatXuerThe Girl in White TowelIsabella ChenTeenage GirlJeszlene ZhouMing (as Jeszlene Devon Zhou)Ian Francis LowGuitar Man
Vincent TeeOld ManGodfrey YeoOld ManA beautiful woman discovers the rooster fighting world and in the process fall in love with a handsome boy.
Foon escapes an arranged marriage by walking the road of a Ji Sor. After an affair with Shing, she becomes pregnant. An attempted abortion nearly costs Foon her life. Wan, the young owner of a silk factory, rescues her. Wan and Foon share their romances, reflecting the experience of women during the 40's.
When asked for her real name, the feisty woman in a rural whorehouse would quip, "Ligaya. It means joy. And that's what I sell." Yet the small-town prostitute is not resigned that she would be in the flesh trade forever. She still harbors the dream of getting out of the job someday. She saves money and fancies that someone would come and marry her as if she were clean and never been a whore. That becomes almost a reality when a hardworking farmer enters her life. Under some problematic circumstances, her chances get blown away-but not exactly of her sole doing.
Gerard Casanova is the man all the rich and beautiful women call when they want their sexual urges satisfied.
An emotionally-beaten man with his young daughter moves to his ancestral home in Newfoundland to reclaim his life.
Thomas, the son of a prison warden, falls for Martin, one of the prison inmates. After Martin is released, they try to build a relationship and a life together but, no one will leave them alone.
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
In Colombia just after the Great War, an old man falls from a ladder; dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow - she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader.
Flighty Emily "Jacks" Jackson works for the British edition of Vogue magazine. Rather than pursue a relationship, Jacks regularly hooks up with her devoted ex-boyfriend, James Wildstone, and lives with Peter Simon, a gay screenwriter. When Jacks meets Argentinian photographer's assistant Paolo Sarmiento, she assumes he is gay and tries to bring him and Peter together, unaware that Paolo is straight and in love with her.
When Sven provokes a fight after an evening out in Amsterdam his best friend ends up in a coma, and nothing is the same as before.
A woman attempts to resume her place in the family that she abandoned years earlier.
Best friends Deco and Naldinho co-own a cargo boat in Brazil's Salvador da Bahia. They give a ride to a sultry prostitute named Karinna, and soon both men fall prey to her considerable sexual charms, pushing the bounds of their friendship to the limit.
A man is reluctant to tell his fiancee that his parents, uncle and brother are dwarfs.
Three young boys pool their money and pay V, a kindhearted prostitute, to strip for them. Afterward, she drives them home to the suburbs -- but then her car breaks down. It's just as well, though, because a mobster named Waltzer is after her, and V realizes the suburbs are the perfect place to hide. But things get a lot more complicated when V falls in love with Tom, a single father who is unaware of her real profession.
A single dad looks to give up drinking and his bartender job in order to impress his son and find work as a magician.
A romantic drama about a woman who enters into an affair after 30 years of marriage.
Vignettes of the lives of several residents of a Vienna suburb during a heat wave.
Bored with Bollywood movies but fascinated with their Hollywood counterparts from his youth, Ram dreams to become a singer and actor in America, the country where dreams are made. He is encouraged when his American-based close friend, Vijay Rao, comes for visit, and brags about driving a Mercedes and living in a penthouse.
Marie is fed up with always serving men as a fling. Now she wants to turn the tables and gets herself two male creatures: she regularly has wild sex with the muscular construction worker Frank, while pianist Alyosha is there for the romantic hours. But Marie develops more feelings for both of them over time, which is not her only problem, because the two lovers also happen to share the same apartment...