“Free Chol Soo Lee” Review: In This Documentary, Optimism Is A Long Game

The late Korean-American immigrant Chol Soo Lee never got the chance to narrate Julie Ha and Eugene Yi's lucid documentary about his journey through the US justice system, but his voice echoes every moment of "Free Chol Soo Lee". His own memoirs and letters to key compatriots frame the film, thanks to the respectful and compelling narration of another former prisoner of Korean descent, Sebastian Yoon (you can find his story in the Netflix docuseries Ken Burns "College Behind Bars").

"Respectful and compelling" accurately describes the entire documentary, which follows Lee's tragic life through many iterations. A huge miscarriage of justice led to him being incarcerated in 1973 for a murder he didn't commit, and that story alone could support his own movie. However, Ha and Yi also delve into Lee's upbringing (the child of a Korean mother and an American father, he spent his early childhood in Korea with his extended family before being brought to America by a seemingly unfit father), the myriad ways the systems let him down (from schools to assorted detention centers), and his desire to find a place in the world as a confused young man.

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Archival footage that follows Lee and his adopted hometown of San Francisco, along with interviews with the many people who have championed his cause, provides a complete picture of a very complex story. Still, with so much to cover, “Free Chol Soo Lee” often feels like the tip of a much bigger iceberg. Ha and Yi instead choose to focus their functionality on its most uplifting elements, making them an understandable, if somewhat limiting, choice for functionality.

It starts with isolation and ends with inclusion. When Lee was 20, someone shot a man dead in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. Dozens (if not hundreds) of people witnessed the execution-style murder, but the victim Yip Yee Tak was a member of the Wah Ching gang; at the time, he was at war with a rival gang. With the murder classified as "gang violence", no one was willing to tell the cops what (or who) they saw in the melee. Lee was a well-known and well-liked resident of Chinatown, but the cops didn't really care who took the fall (or that the assailant was widely reported to be of Chinese descent; Lee used to be the only Korean around) and pinned the crime on him.

A year after the murder, Lee was sentenced to life in prison. A year later, an appeal failed. Two years later, Lee killed a fellow inmate (he pleaded self-defense; as one of the film's many talking heads reminds us, "everything" you do in prison is self-defense). Due to his previous conviction, Lee was sentenced to the death penalty. But as system after system and hope after hope let Lee down, a movement stirred to set him free.

Variously different people rallied behind Lee, including journalist K.W. Lee, friends, activists, lawyers, students, and everyday people who found their way to the cause, but they often shared experiences key life. Many were of Asian descent; many were also immigrants, as was Lee. With Lee's many supporters desperate to right the enormous wrongs against him, the Free Chol Soo Lee movement did more than inspire hope for Lee; it inspired hope for a pan-Asian assortment of like-minded people. Yi and Ha's decision to focus on this part of Lee's story gives the documentary fundamental structure and resonant emotional value, but it leaves other questions lurking.

It's no secret that Lee was finally released, but Yi and Ha are afraid of what happened after he was exonerated in 1983; he died in 2014 after another run-in with the law. A story about justice denied and the possibility that people can come together to right a wrong is necessary and vital. If the film gives us hope, it's that such a miscarriage of justice can never happen again - and if it does, many will be there to answer the call.

Category B-

MUBI will release "Free Chol Soo Lee" on Friday, August 12 at the IFC Center in New York City, followed by a special one-night simultaneous screening event held in over 180 theaters nationwide on Wednesday, August 17. will continue to expand in the coming weeks.

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