Filmmaker Henri Lanvern is making a film called A King Above the Clouds in the Highlands of Thailand. One evening, at the end of the shoot, he gathers his team and announces that he is leaving for three days in scouting. He lies and in fact goes to meet an old war friend, General Cao Ba Ky, escaped from a communist re-education camp. We haven't seen Lanvern since. A journalist investigates this disappearance and collects the testimonies of many people who knew him, including a colonel of the intelligence services, a journalist and a film editor.