`I do not wish to be silent any more, and yet, I am afraid. I hope nothing happens. My grandmother is back in China.”
Chinese film star Bai Ling was talking about the release of her first American starring role, as a Chinese lawyer who defends an American accused of murder in Beijing. To her, taking the role in “Red Corner” was more than just a job. It was a risk.
“I live in China,” she said. “I will go back. But, when they see this film, I don’t know. I fear most for my grandmother. She is very old and does not want to leave. I have not tried to get her out. She wants to be there. I was raised by her. My parents, who are school professors, sent me to live with her when I was 7.”
“Red Corner” stars Richard Gere as an American businessman-lawyer who is in Beijing to make a deal for cable television outlets in the lucrative new Chinese market. After a flirtatious meeting at a nightclub, he wakes up the next morning with police breaking into his hotel room and the body of a dead Chinese woman near him.
When he is accused of murder, the American government can, or will, do nothing to help him.
He quickly learns that the Chinese judicial system is swift. The average trial is less than four hours and the conviction rate is close to 99 percent. A party guilty of a capital offense is shot within a week of his sentencing and the cost of the bullet is billed to his family.
This government doesn’t mess around. It also, if the film is to be believed, doesn’t give fair trials.
Bai Ling, as Gere’s lawyer, pleads guilty for him, because she claims this is the only way to save his life. The system promotes leniency for those who confess; severity for those who resist.
“The film is true,” Bai Ling said as she sat in Los Angeles recently. “If anything, the system is more strict than pictured. I tried to help the film in any way I could. There were things that were not right. For example, when the Chinese soldiers marched in, they didn’t know how to walk.”
Bai Ling, wearing an ornately brocaded silk coat and trousers, looks like a delicate flower, and speaks with the same gentility. It is not by accident that she is often compared, in her country, to Hollywood star Audrey Hepburn. Yet, her soft-spoken gentleness is accompanied by a determination to remain a part of her native country — no matter what.
It is not by coincidence that the film’s release coincides with the American visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Star Richard Gere, who has himself been banned from China for his outspoken resistance to the occupation of Tibet, urged that it be released now. Gere, who last visited China three years ago, has had his visa revoked. He made headlines when he spoke out against China’s occupation of Tibet at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1993.
Bai Ling said that she was not awed by Gere’s star status. In fact, she had never seen any of his films. “I have never seen `An Officer and a Gentleman,”‘ she said. “But, since I was cast, I have seen `Pretty Woman’ and `American Gigolo.’ I find Richard very charming and likable. He was very concerned, like me, with getting truth into the film.”
The movie, directed by Jan Avnet, is suspect, though, because the script was originally set in Russia. The Moscow setting was changed when Russian communism came to an end. She claims, though, that it has been carefully researched for the switch to China.
Because of the subject matter, and especially because of Gere, “Red Corner” could not be filmed in China. A set, covering four sound stages, was built in Los Angeles to represent Beijing. More than half the cast was flown from Asia and could not speak English. For the courtroom scenes, spirited arguments would surface among the cast about the Chinese translations.
The opening scenes, however, were shot in China, with Bai Ling riding a bicycle through Tiananmen Square. Gere was put into the Chinese setting via computer technology later.
“It was dangerous for her,” director Jan Avnet said. “We filmed a number of exterior landmarks that are used to give the film an authentic look. None of the filming was authorized. She was fearless.”
For the most part, though, the scenes in the film were shot in Hollywood, with tons of Chinese items used to dress the sets.
Bai Ling, the steel magnolia who speaks softly but with steely conviction, is planning her return to China, and to her grandmother.
She says, simply, “I am aware of the gravity of the situation.”
