As a child in Kyoto in the 1970s, Nagiko's (Wu) calligrapher father used her body to write a birthday message in paint. Now grown up and living in Hong Kong, she seeks a lover who will use her whole body as a blank canvas. English translator Jerome (Ewan McGregor) reverses roles and becomes the subject of her penmanship. They dream up a plan of creating a new Pillow Book, some 1000 years after Sei ShÅ