begins an affair. During one of her performances, he comes onstage to photograph her up close, prompting other photographers to follow suit, all while her girlfriend watches from the crowd. After Jing begins to interact with Zhen on stage, his girlfriend (presumably) walks out on the performance. Back at his apartment, Zhen finds Jing's badge with instructions on what to do in case of an epileptic episode. Before he goes to return it, he spots his girlfriend down the street and tries to embrace her, but she rejects his advances. Later, at a club, Jing and her girlfriend argue over Jing's failure to respond to her calls. Jing calms her down with a hug and promises to wait for her to perform. After they arrive at their apartment, Jing receives a text from Zhen to meet the following day so he can give her the photos as well as her misplaced badge. Jing's girlfriend tries to speak with her, but she remains distant. When her girlfriend leaves to bathe, Jing starts writing lyrics inspired by her experience with Zhen. The following morning, Jing works on recording the music to the song she wrote the night before. She meets up with Zhen and asks him to take her to his place, where they continue their affair. Back at the apartment, Jing's girlfriend wakes up to find Jing absent. After finding Jing's phone left behind, she types Jing a message in which she writes that she's tired of waiting to be loved back and that she'll kill herself like Jing's previous girlfriend. Jing returns home and finds the message. She reads it and lies down on the bed. The song she wrote begins to play. We see her riding with Zhen on his motorbike along the freeway. Production Three Times was originally meant to be an omnibus collection of short films, with Hou directing only one of the segments. But the producers were unable to obtain the financing to hire three directors, so Hou took over the whole production. Hou cast Shu Qi for the female lead roles, marking his second collaboration with her, after 2001's Millennium Mambo. For the male lead roles, Hou cast Chang Chen, adding to Chen's list of collaborations with notable Chinese and Taiwanese directors, including Edward Yang, Wong Kar Wai, Ang Lee and Jeffrey Lau. He and Shu reunited with Hou in his 2015 wuxia film The