A Couple of Questions

Well, I'm not sure.

As far as the husband is concerned, I actually like that he was not mentioned at all. That is what great about movies and books like this: as a work of art, it is only finished inside the heads of viewers and readers. Was it a one time thing? Was she married and did her husband leave, forcing her to work abroad to take care of her son? Or maybe he even died, perhaps even as a fisherman, like her father was, and her grandfather, and her grandfather's grandfather, so that she now loves and fears the sea at once. We can only guess.

I cannot fully put together the roommate's role either. To me she seemed like a deeply unhappy soul, her mood being only slightly uplifted by the arrival of Shun Li. She had probably been working for the outfit for some time, like Shun Li, that's where she got the money. And because of her unhappiness she either left or committed suicide (throughout the beach exercise scenes I had this ominous feeling that at one point she would just walk into the sea), leaving what she earned to the only person around that was worthy of it. I cannot really understand why the outfit cooperated, they did not seem like a bunch that would agree to such out-of-the-box favors. That China told Shun Li about it makes sense though, he had to give some explanation did he not??

i really enjoyed the film too.

i think the roommate left a will before she "walked into the sea", stating that all the money she has earned over the years goes to pay off the debt of shun li. since the roommate always work at the night, it implies she works as a prostitute, so was probably earning quite alot of money. some chinese mafia are very superstitious and would be too scared to keep that money for themselves cos they would worry the ghost of the roommate would come back to haunt them...