True Believer (1989)

True Believer (also released as Fighting Justice) is a 1989 American courtroom drama written by Wesley Strick, directed by Joseph Ruben, and starring James Woods, Robert Downey Jr., Yuji Okumoto, Margaret Colin, and Kurtwood Smith. The film is loosely based on an investigative series of articles written by Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist K. W. Lee on the wrongful conviction of immigrant Chol Soo Lee for a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gangland murder. The news coverage led to a new trial, eventual acquittal and release of the prisoner from San Quentin’s Death Row.

Eddie Dodd is a burnt-out attorney who has left behind civil rights work to defend drug dealers. Roger Baron is an idealistic young legal clerk, fresh out of law school, who encourages Dodd to take on the case of Shu Kai Kim, a young Korean man who was imprisoned for a gang-related murder committed in New York’s Chinatown and has now killed a fellow inmate in self-defense. Kim’s mother believes her son was wrongfully accused in the gang-related murder. Dodd and Baron’s investigation leads to a conspiracy among the district attorney, a police informant, and several police officers.