`RED CORNER' MANAGES TO WALK A FINE LINE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

Give 'em credit for cramming everything that could possibly fit into ``Red Corner.'' It's a murder mystery, courtroom drama, anti-Beijing propaganda piece and cultural travelogue all at once. There's even something of a love story, which remains chaste because, well, there's really not enough room for anything more.

All of these different elements mesh pretty well to form a coherent, if not entirely credible story. A good thing, too; without all the interweaving plots, the movie would tip into tedium rather than just constantly threatening to do so.

Richard Gere plays a hotshot media attorney, Jack Moore, who's in Beijing to negotiate a lucrative satellite television deal with Chinese bureaucrats. After a hard day of trying to sell them some bikini show, Moore unwinds at a kickin' nightclub, where he picks up a lovely young woman (Jessey Meng).

Moore awakens the next morning to find her bloody corpse and cops all over his hotel suite. Arrested for murder, he undergoes the usual indignities of foreign movie jail: brutal guards, bad food, cold stone cell. Worse, he discovers that the Chinese judicial system pretty much operates in a confess-or-die-and-pay-for-the-bullet-we-shoot-you-with manner.

So when Moore's court-appointed lawyer Shen Yuelin (Chinese actress Bai Ling) pleads him guilty, she thinks she's doing him a favor. She can't understand this arrogant American's insistence on proclaiming his innocence, especially against overwhelming evidence that he actually is guilty.

But of course, Shen comes around - she sees Moore's case as a means of making up for her own silence as a child of the Cultural Revolution - and soon both their lives are at risk.

Directed by Jon Avnet (``Fried Green Tomatoes,'' ``Up Close and Personal''), ``Red Corner'' negotiates its own thin line between audience-pleasing outrage and respect for at least some of the Chinese people and their institutions. It's impossible not to consider the court here a Kafkaesque joke, yet a good amount of care is taken to acknowledge the just aspects of the Chinese legal code. Nonetheless, this movie will do about as much to promote Beijing tourism as ``Midnight Express'' did for Turkey.

As you might imagine, committed China critic Gere gives one of his most impassioned performances as the desperate Moore. He develops fear, hopelessness and resolve persuasively and intensely; Gere only rings hollow notes when Robert King's plot demands that Moore make grand, martyring gestures.

Bai Ling is even better. A fundamentally contained actress, she builds Shen's increasing stress, apprehension and exhilarating moral liberation with intelligence and subtlety, avoiding melodramatics while somehow making stronger and stronger character points.

The production team did an absolutely marvelous job of recreating Beijing in Southern California. Since Gere is not allowed in China, the computer effects outfit Digital Domain seamlessly inserted the actor into footage Avnet shot of Beijing neighborhoods and landmarks. For more elaborate interactions, Oscar-winning production designer Richard Sylbert built a sprawling Chinese residential neighborhood in Playa del Rey. At least compared to movies from China I've seen, it looks mighty authentic.

With all it has going for it, though, ``Red Corner'' never quite beats the built-in challenge of pacing a talky courtroom drama - that requires a whole lot of retranslated dialogue - at a gripping clip. Considering that, though, Avnet and company have made an impressive, elaborate effort to hold our attention.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Red Corner'' (R; sex, nudity, violence, language).

The stars: Richard Gere, Bai Ling, Bradley Whitford and Byron Mann.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Jon Avnet. Written by Robert King. Produced by Avnet, Jordan Kerner, Charles B. Mulvehill and Rosalie Swedlin. Released by MGM.

Running time: One hour, 59 minutes

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo

Photo: American Jack Moore (Richard Gere) and his Chinese attorney Shen Yuelin (Bai Ling) try to prove his innocence in ``Red Corner.''