(at least I think it's "Intermezzo")...
She's still a virgin at this point, and couldn't be reacting to the movie's dialogue about adultery.
Why is she so upset?
Maybe it appealed to something latent in her.
sharei think it's about story of the movie.
The Actor got married and fell in love with daughter's piano tutor. But finally he still came back to his wife.
As you said, "She's still a virgin at this point", it might indicate how Wong innocent was or how eagerly she wanna be loved.
She's crying because her father remarried abroad (in America?). I think she knows deep down inside that it means there is no chance her father will get her to join him and her little brother there. He builds another family; they moved on and left her behind. They've already gone for so long anyway (for years I think): In the first flashback scene when she tells story about her family. The migration of her father & little brother quite a long tiime ago and how he actually was gonna have her join them after her mother's death.
And before the scene in the theatre, she already looks upset in the previous scene when she writes a repply letter to "congratulate" him for the second marriage.
Btw, "the cry", just breaks my heart :(
I think it's the initial point of everything that's about to happen next until the end of the story. The feeling of being abandoned makes her thinks that the drama group is the only "family" she has now (her "root" so to speak)--that's why she "agrees" and joins to anything they plan, and how she eventually falls in love with Mr.Yee. He's much older than her and somehow can provide the fatherly love she's been longing for. Actually Ang Lee mentioned it in some interviews how JiaZhi actually somehow has fallen for Mr.Yee in their first dinner date because he shows some kind of fatherly affection towards her. Hmm, I personally don't "get" what he means by fatherly affection in the scene since I think Mr.Yee's eyes looks very lustful during the whole dinner. In fact, I think his eyes looks most lustful in this particular scene than in any other scenes.
No great mystery: the movie is a soap opera aimed at the emotions.
A recurring feature in Lust, Caution is Chi's interest in romantic movies. She watches Penny Serenade (1941) as well as Intermezzo (1939), both films focus to an extent upon romantic relationships. It is the intense emotions of these relationships is what Chi looked for explaining why she fell for Yee despite his behavior and her workings for the resistance.
"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".
I meant, of course, her focus on "Intermezzo".
Chi was also romantically interested in the Lee Hom character, before she knew anything about Yee.
So her watching those films illustrates the character.
I think she went to the theater as an excuse to cry about her father's remarriage since that was the scene right before it.
shareFirst of all, I appreciate very much this simple question: I love the floodgate of interpretation it opened. I've enjoyed other folks' responses on this.
My feeling was pretty simple; that it aims to help establish Chia Chi's character, to wit: She simply connects, deeply, with narrative. Not everyone does. In a way, Li An might have relished this opportunity to send out a little 'love note' to all who love and appreciate the role that narrative in general and film narrative in particular plays in training us for meaningful lives.
Which reflection, btw, sets us up for yet-another depth of the tragedy of Se, Jie: Among the many things that the bogus projection of power (here, the Japanese invasion/attempted colonization of China) kills is even the opportunity to fully express the meaningfulness that art can give us.
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And I'd like that. But that 5h1t ain't the truth. --Jules Winnfield