A passionate story percolated for decades
Some stories leap quickly from real life to the TV or movie screen.
Then there’s “Free Chol Soo Lee,” the involving documentary that debuts at 10 p.m. Monday on PBS’ “Independent Lens.” It percolated in Julie Ha’s mind for somewhere close to four decades.
That started with Korean-American reporter K.W. Lee, she told the Television Critics Association. “I was 18 years old and he inspired me to want to become a journalist.”
His stories helped spark a retrial. In 1983, after a decade in prison, Chol Soo Lee (shown here, center) was free.
Much later, in 2014, Ha went to the ex-prisoner’s funeral. “K.W, Lee stood up,” she said, “and he was clutching this Buddhist monk’s walking stick that Chol Soo had carved for him out of a tree. And he said, ‘Why is this story underground after all these years?’” Read more…