Free Chol Soo Lee

Get an inside look at Free Chol Soo Lee from Independent Lens. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside California state prisons, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him.

Free Chol Soo Lee co-directors Julie Ha and Eugene Yi share mouthwatering lunch with activists Ranko Yamada and Gail Whang in L.A.'s Koreatown.

Sentenced to life for a 1973 San Francisco murder, Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee was set free after a pan-Asian solidarity movement, which included Korean, Japanese, and Chinese Americans, helped to overturn his conviction. After 10 years of fighting for his life inside California state prisons, Lee found himself in a new fight to rise to the expectations of the people who believed in him.

Through his journey from an inspiring icon to a swing-shift janitor, Chol Soo Lee personifies the ravages of America’s prison industrial complex.

Did a song help free an incarcerated man? Dolly Li breaks down how UC Berkeley college students wrote a track about Chol Soo Lee, a wrongfully convicted Korean immigrant sentenced to life in prison. Stream Free Chol Soo Lee now on the PBS App.

Remember 1989’s True Believer, starring James Woods and Robert Downey, Jr.? Was it a prime example of Hollywood’s White Savior Complex? Dolly Li examines how the flick centered a white lawyer in a story based on Chol Soo Lee’s arrest. Stream Free Chol Soo Lee now on YouTube or the PBS App.