About the movie
In this provocative high stakes thriller, a smooth and savy lawyer travels to mainland China to broker a multi-billion dollar television deal. While celebrating the successful negotation, he meets a beautiful young Chinese woman only to wake up the next morning with her dead and him accused of her brutal rape and murder. He becomes trapped in a legal system with no presumption of innocence, with a Chinese woman lawyer who does not believe in his innocence and immediately files a guilty plea, insisting that she is saving his life: leniency for those who confess; severity for those who resist.
Starring Richard Gere, Bai Ling and Bradley Whitford.
Produced by Gail Katz and Wolfgang Petersen.
Directed by Jon Avnet.
About the music
This soundtrack to Thomas Newman's sixth collaboration with director/producer Jon Avnet may come as a surprise if you expected something along the lines of Fried Green Tomatoes, Up Close and Personal or The War. This movie was Avnet's first real attempt at a thriller and that's the kind of music you should expect here: suspense music. The Chinese setting has inspired Newman to compose some lovely melodies that adapt textures of Chinese string instruments, but on the whole most of the cues are done in the style of '70s Goldsmith/Fielding thriller scores, with a contempory twist of course. Most of the music is dark and textural and only in the end, Newman makes room for real melodies. The Chinese element is accented by the addition of three Chinese traditionals, which really need to be programmed out in order to fully enjoy Mr Newman's score.
1 окт 2024
