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Free Chol Soo Lee (12A)
Directed by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi
★★★★
THIS powerful documentary examines a major miscarriage of justice in 1970s San Francisco, which sparked an unprecedented social justice movement and its devastating effects on the man at the centre of this heartbreaking story.
It follows 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee who was racially profiled and wrongly convicted of the 1973 murder of Yip Yee Tak, a San Francisco Chinatown gang leader, a murder perpetrated in fact by a Chinese assassin.
The film outlines how the incident wasn’t properly investigated until journalist KW Lee — the only Korean reporter in US media at the time — took an interest in the case, generating Asian American interest and support which took on a life of its own as the campaign for his freedom turned Chol Soo Lee into a cause celebre.
Featuring interviews with the key activists who fought for his liberation as well as an archive interview with Chol Soo Lee himself, film-makers Julie Ha and Eugene Yi debut documentary provides a gripping and insightful account reminiscent of the Central Park Five.
It shows how the authorities, in a bid for a quick arrest, failed to interview credible witnesses and suspects. Then there was the glaring racial dimension, given that Chol Soo Lee was Korean rather than Chinese.
The film explores the awful effects of institutionalisation on Chol Soo Lee after a decade in jail during which he accidentally killed another inmate in self defence.
Convicted of the prison killing as murder, he now faced life on death row for two murders.
He was ordered to be released by a judge on March 28, 1983 as wrongly convicted, while time served was deemed as sentence served for the second killing.
However, he faced many difficulties later in life, although in his numerous speaking engagements around the Bay Area he always stressed the need of the authorities to engage with the Asian American community.
Free Chol Soo Lee was screened, in January 2022, at the Sundance Film Festival and is a crushing and heartwrenching story, which unfortunately still resonates today.
As he poignantly says: “I’m not a hero, I’m a human being.”
Out in cinemas August 19
