An American TV executive (Richard Gere) travels to Beijing to negotiate a ground-breaking satellite entertainment deal, only to wind up charged with first degree murder when the attractive stranger with whom he shares a one-night stand turns up dead in his hotel room. Ostensibly a legal thriller, Red Corner actually seems to exist for a robust – and robustly embarrassing – attack on the People’s Republic by the famously pro-Tibet Gere. In all honesty it leap-frogs legitimate political expression altogether in favour of B-grade racism.

Much of Red Corner is spent showcasing China’s oppressive legal system, where guard routinely threaten and beat Gere, steal his possessions, throw him down stairwells, wash his dishes in the toilet, and relentlessly challenge his every attempt to prove his innocence. Even his court-appointed lawyer, the attractive lawyer of a local dissident (Bai Ling, in a decent performance trapped in a bad movie), recommends he pleads guilty to make things easier on himself. While China’s police, criminal courts, and police force are undoubtedly marred with controversy, there is no hiding Red Corner‘s treatment is particularly one-sided. It seems particularly rich coming from America, where police brutality is startlingly common and which has the highest incarceration rate in the world (China, for the record, comes 84th).

Take away the novelty of a Chinese setting, and Red Corner has little to offer beyond stereotypes and formulas. The film is listlessly directed by Jon Avnet, but then I am unsure if Avnet has ever directed a particularly strong film in his career. Honestly Red Corner feels par for the course. Otherwise talented actors like Bradley Whitford and James Hong have almost nothing with which to work.

It is notable that the film does little to convince the audience of Gere’s innocence beyond the assumption that they will side him as the protagonist. His character is found blind drunk in a hotel suite surrounded by empty bottles, covered in blood, and with the alleged victim mere metres away. So contrived is the film’s ultimate reveal – it’s clear throughout that Gere has been framed – that one winds up forgiving most of the characters for assuming the protagonist is guilty. The film attempts to frame the US embassy as self-serving and unhelpful, but it’s difficult not to see their point: ‘dude, you woke up after a blackout covered in a dead woman’s blood – your legal troubles are on you’. Not only is Gere portrayed as honourable and noble, but he is presented as the smartest lawyer in the room, despite having only a day or two with a translated book of Chinese laws for experience. It is even up to Gere to school Bai Ling’s lawyer into doing what is right, even when her entire character is already defined as a crusader for social justice.

Red Corner is a deeply mediocre mid-1990s effort, one rendered even less watchable due to its contemptible post-colonial attitudes. To make matters worse, even its attacks on Chinese government and society ring hollow. To see proper, heartfelt criticism of China, one need simply check out films produced inside of China itself. They make plenty of them.

In 1997 the National Board of Review made the bizarre choice to award Red Corner their annual Freedom of Expression prize. The winner just two years earlier? Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, whose films contain smarter and more reasoned criticism of his home country than an entire two hours of Red Corner.