In order to heighten the film's sense of reality, director Jon Avnet, actress Bai Ling, and co-producer Martin Huberty traveled to Beijing for a week of "guerilla" shooting, without the knowledge or permission of the Chinese government, to capture the first-ever 35mm film of the city to appear in a Hollywood film.
Most of the film's exterior scenes were shot on a seven-acre reproduction of a Beijing neighborhood, constructed near Los Angeles International Airport. The set was decorated with 300 bicycles, 15 cars, and thousands of miscellaneous props - from stoves to manhole covers - which had actually been imported from China.
For the scene in which Jack is intimidated with video of a government execution, the filmmakers used actual execution footage which had been smuggled out of China.
Production designer Richard Sylbert took two research trips to China, where he took over 1,500 photographs in order to provide himself with real-life references for the film's massive sets.
This movie is one of the most accurate depictions of a Chinese city in Hollywood movies until 2023. It contains a large number of accurate details of the 1997 Beijing cityscape, including the uniforms of law enforcement, military, and prosecutors at the time. The most remarkable detail is the uniform of the security guard in the lobby of the telecommunications bureau, which was specially designed for the security guards of various important departments in China at that time. It is difficult to find the original product from flea market, and it has not even appeared in nostalgic TV dramas produced in China. It seems that people have forgotten it.