In 1973, Korean American immigrant Chol Soo Lee was wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for murder in California. His circumstances stirred a movement that inspired Asian Americans to stand and support him while trying to secure his freedom, which he was granted after ten years behind bars. Nearly 50 years after his imprisonment, his plight is the subject of Free Chol Soo Lee, a new documentary by Eugene Yi and Julie Ha.
Using a combination of archive footage and interviews from supporters and friends, the film explores Lee’s life in America and the development of the Free Chol Soo Lee movement, which brewed into an example of racial discrimination.
Throughout the documentary, Ha and Yi challenge the still-existing assumptions about Asian identity – in his late teens, Lee was known as the ‘only’ Korean in Chinatown, which highlights a lack of peers that can fully understand his culture and language. Unfortunately, this leads to him being unable to truly defend himself and his subsequent incarceration. To the police and the media, he was quickly dismissed as another immigrant Chinese man who was involved in the known street gang wars in Chinatown.
But thanks to the efforts of investigative report K W Lee, the crime rouses the suspicions of other Asians, who knew that there was more to the shooting and Lee’s imprisonment than disruption in Chinatown. The interviewees, most of whom are Asian Americans, don’t shy away from the simple fact: not all Asians are the same. However, it is this misconception that enabled the key (Caucasian) witnesses and the police to pin the murder on Chol Soo Lee while more reliable parties kept quiet for fear of retribution. Through their candid comments, Yi and Ha reiterate the difficulties of being different in another country and the hardships that extend past social inequality.
The documentary also looks into Chol Soo Lee’s life while in prison. With Sebastian Yoon providing voiceover narration, Lee is contemplative and occasionally bleak about adapting to the dangers in prison. Despite the initial resignation to his fate, he is also modest about the growing eponymous movement that has united a vast group of Asian Americans, welcoming a support system that is not only unfamiliar but bold enough to stand against something they knew was wrong.
With a runtime of 83 minutes, Yi and He do a great job of delivering a condensed yet startling insight into Chol Soo Lee’s life and the rousing emotions brought on by his movement. They also highlight the psychological effects on Lee upon his release and his institutionalisation, which is exacerbated by him coming back down from the heights as a figurehead of a movement to the mundane depths of reality. So much effort had gone into him being released that he was unprepared for adult life, which tragically resulted in a self-destructive path of drugs, crime and loneliness. As the documentary veers towards an abrupt and bittersweet end, Free Chol Soo Lee leaves audiences with more questions than answers, wondering what could have become of Lee if he recognised the extent of his legacy. However, Ha and Yi combine careful editing and sensitive direction to ultimately deliver a shocking and sobering insight into a normal guy, whose only ‘crime’ is looking different.
Free Chol Soo Lee is part of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival Satellite Screen program.
Rating: 
Director: Julie Ha, Eugene Yi
Runtime: 83 minutes
Country: USA
