AllMovie

Xiao Mei (Jinzi), a Beijing prostitute, travels to a coastal resort town during the winter off-season, and checks into a hotel. When the only other guest, a mentally unbalanced young poet, commits suicide in his room, investigating police officer Deng Jianguo (Cheng Taisheng) correctly surmises that Xiao is there to do the same thing, and what she does for a living back in Beijing. Much to her annoyance, he begins dogging her around the nearly empty town, lecturing her and taking her out for the seafood meals of which he is an ardent aficionado (he believes that consuming seafood makes him a more potent lover). Deng at first comes across as a quirky and strangely insistent good Samaritan, but it soon becomes apparent that his interest in Xiao is a lot more sinister than it first appeared, and that he has a shockingly perverse dark side that eventually forces a violent showdown with her.