Directed by journalist and filmmakers Julie Ha and Eugene Yi, “Free Chol Soo Lee” tells the rollercoaster life story of Chol Soo Lee, a Korean immigrant wrongfully convicted of murder in San Francisco in the 1970s, and the Pan-Asian American grassroots movement for justice he inspired.
In 1973, Chol Soo Lee was arrested for the gang-related murder of Yip Yee Tak, a Chinese American man who had been shot to death in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Following a flawed investigation, which leaned on eyewitness testimony of three white tourists, no interviews with members of the local Chinatown community, Lee was wrongfully convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison. Four years into serving his sentence in Tracy, California, Lee got into an altercation with another inmate, Morrison Needham, that ended with Lee killing him in what he claimed was an act of self-defense.
Around this time, a Koren journalist named K.W. Lee began investigating the case and wrote a series of stories that revealed the police investigation’s missteps and the racism that was evident throughout the process in their racial profiling and stereotyping of Lee. The articles helped spark a nationwide grassroots movement among numerous Asian American groups, leading to the formation of a Pan-Asian American Defense committee, and a national and global coalition of activists and allies rallying for Lee’s release. As the documentary captures, the movement marked a seminal moment for a historic, national pan-Asian coalition that brought together immigrant and American-born Asians in a common cause for justice and freedom for Chol Soo Lee.
“Free Chol Soo Lee” will premiere at 9:00 p.m. on Monday, April 24 on Panhandle PBS. The film will also be available to stream on the PBS Video app.
