A film that chronicled the six-year struggle to free Chol Soo Lee, a Korean American immigrant wrongfully convicted for the 1973 murder of Yip Tee Tak in San Francisco Chinatown, has won an Emmy for best historical documentary.
Appropriately titled Free Chol Soo Lee, the film directed by Julie Ha and Eugene Yi tells the story of not only of Chol Soo Lee, but that of K.W. Lee, a pioneering journalist who wrote a series of stories for the Sacramento Union that uncovered serious flaws in the conviction and witness testimony.
By his own admission, Lee was no angel, describing himself during an interview for the film as “a young street punk.” The stories by K.W. Lee inspired a movement for a retrial, eventually leading to an acquittal and Chol Soo Lee’s freedom.
Review: Free Chol Soo Lee, a must-see film on Asian American history
“This film grew out of love- love for journalism and for KW Lee. He’s actually watching tonight. He’s 96. His articles once sparked a bold righteous pan Asian American Justice movement to free a man from death row,” said Ha. “He had lamented that the story of Chol Soo Lee became forgotten. But it’s too important to be forgotten,” said Ha in her tearful acceptance speech.
The documentary debut at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival with the support of the Center for Asian American Media, CAAM. It had a national airing on PBS’ Independent Lens and can still be seen on PBS website.
“Thanks to him (K.W. Lee) and the hands of so so many, we were able to excavate this lost history which we assert is not just part of Asian American history but American history, human history so that it can move and inspire today just as it did almost 50 years ago,” Ha said.
Lee died in 2014 at the age of 62.
“We hope your spirit can find peace, Chol Soo, knowing that your story will be spread far and wide, and your legacy will continue,” Ha concluded.
(A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of years it took to free Chol Soo Lee. It has been corrected.)
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