Richard Gere stands on anti-China soapbox in 'Red Corner'
By Stevie Emilia
JAKARTA (JP): Red Corner is the sort of film that hits you in the gut, invoking a nameless fear of being framed for murder in a foreign country (China, in this case) known for its complicated legal system.
What's more, nobody believes you are innocent. Hanging heavy over your head is the possibility of conviction for a capital offense, mandating death by firing squad a week after the verdict is read.
No possibility of lengthy appeals to keep you hanging on to a lifeline. And even the cost of the bullet will be billed to your family back home.
The film opens with a little girl sitting alone on the riverbank, listening to the rhythmical sounds of a bamboo tree. The tree, she says, is waiting for the wind to touch it.
This idyllic scene is then replaced by the film-maker's view of the China today; children play soccer in Tiananmen Square and tourists snap away with their cameras, unknowingly under the observant gaze of nearby soldiers and electronic monitors.
High-rises fringe Beijing streets swarming with vehicles, the trappings of the capitalist economy.
Director John Avnet, who also directed Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford in Up Close and Personal, is obviously setting up a contrast between perceptions of reality, and the often jarring realities which exist underneath.
Just 20 years ago, communism was a virtual religion dictating what people wore and ate, where they lived and traveled and even what they thought.
Dour Mao suits were de rigeur, the only homes were those allocated by the state, people could not travel, even to neighboring cities, without permits and the few publications available were controlled by the state.
Changes may have come with more open economic times, but Avnet wants to show that the Chinese people are not as free as they seem.
He gets the message home through simple devices -- the monitoring cameras in Tiananmen -- and with the central plot of the innocent in peril.
Murder
As part of the Chinese government's commitment to open itself up to the outside world, it makes its first satellite communication deal with a large entertainment conglomerate represented by American Jack Moore (Gere).
Not all of the officials are happy with the deal. Moore is trapped in the middle of the political intrigues, and framed for murdering the model he slept with on the night the deal was sealed.
Despite his protestations of innocence, nobody believes him, including embassy officials and his court-appointed defense attorney, Shen Yuelin (Bai Ling), the little girl from the riverbank.
Moore then has to follow court proceedings through translations via an earphone, which often fails to function at crucial moments.
As the evidence against him is overwhelming -- he is placed at the scene of the crime and there is an incriminating pile of bloodstained clothes -- Moore depends on Yuelin to save his life.
Despite the salvos fired, Moore does not crumble from the indignities of the system, even when a prison officer washes his plate in the toilet, or when he is "accidentally" beaten by other criminals.
He still gets to enjoy some privileges, such as when Yuelin bails him out of the jail and takes him to her house, plays music for him and takes him to the crime scene.
This is not Gere's first courtroom drama; in Primal Fear, he played a big shot lawyer who thrives on sensational cases.
But in Red Corner, the loyal disciple of the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Buddhism has an opportunity to voice his dissenting sentiments over China and country's judicial system.
Gere is known for his fierce criticism of Beijing. He has urged foreign governments to keep telling China to respect the human rights of all its citizens, claiming that only persistent pressure would bring improvements in China's human rights record.
Not surprisingly, Red Corner was banned by the Chinese government.
Chinese actress Bai Ling's American starring debut is worthy of praise.
She is totally believable in the role of a woman raised during the chaotic, ultraleftist 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, when schools were shut and radical Red Guards burned books and destroyed temples and artworks.
Just like her bamboo tree, Yuelin waits for the wind to touch her. Moore's case gets her involved on a personal level with her client, and instills her with the courage to question the legal system she serves.
What unfolds is a courtroom drama that, while full of twists and turns, is somewhat high on theatrics as well.
It reminds one anew of how skewered the justice system is, which depends on the resources, dramatic skills and personalities of the lawyers to win or lose cases.
Sure, this is fiction. But reality has a way of being uncomfortably close in spirit, if not in style.
Anyway, those are not really the concerns of Red Corner. The movie tends to be glib at times, the transitions coming on too quickly and easily. And like many over-the-top, clever plots, too close a look at it reveals gaps, with not all threads tied.
The courtroom thriller is a genre of moviemaking for which audiences have a distinct partiality. Which is why, of course, so many movies on this theme have been made -- some brilliant, some pure garbage, and most somewhere in between.
This plenitude of legal thrillers also makes it harder for individual movies in this category to stand out and be differentiated.
While Red Corner may be no reinvention of the wheel, it is at least a very well-done refinement of it. And also an opportunity to view Richard Gere, the actor and activist.