'Forever Detective Park': Choi Bool-am's 54-year bond with the police

"I will live more uprightly and serve as a bridge between citizens and the police."

On April 17, 2012, actor Choi Bool-am said those words upon receiving a promotion from honorary senior inspector to honorary superintendent. It had been 23 years since MBC's drama series "Susa Banjang (Detective Park)" went off the air, yet the actor who had played the detective chief still carried the weight of that role. Twelve years later, in 2024, Choi was appointed honorary deputy commissioner general and honorary director of the National Investigation Headquarters — 52 years after first being commissioned as an honorary inspector in 1972.

Choi's connection to the police spanned 54 years until his death Thursday. The Korean National Police Agency posted a tribute on its official SNS on Saturday, writing: "We extend our deepest gratitude to Choi Bool-am, who served as an honorary police officer for the long 54 years since 1972." The agency said Choi had "honored the police through a lifetime of companionship" and pledged to "long remember his warm affection and support for the force."

Choi received honorary police ranks five times in all. Starting with honorary inspector in 1972, he was promoted to honorary senior inspector in 1977, honorary superintendent in 2012, honorary assistant commissioner in 2018, honorary commissioner in 2021, and finally honorary deputy commissioner general in 2024. The last appointment also carried the title of honorary director of the National Investigation Headquarters. The position carries no actual command authority within the police hierarchy, but Choi became the first civilian ever to hold the honorary rank of deputy commissioner general.

The police conferred those ranks because one of the roles Choi played for so long was Detective Park Yeong-han, the chief of the investigative unit in "Susa Banjang." The series premiered on March 6, 1971, and ran for 880 episodes over 18 years until Oct. 12, 1989, making it the defining work of Korean television crime drama. Peak viewership at times exceeded 70 percent. Retired Superintendent Choi Jung-rak, who had arrested more than 870 violent criminals, served as a consultant and helped adapt real cases for the screen. The show's signature theme — composed by Yun Yeong-nam and performed by jazz percussionist Ryu Bok-seong — became a fixture of the nation's living rooms.

"Susa Banjang" was more than a procedural about catching criminals. Set against the rapid industrialization and urbanization of its era, the series examined how poverty, ambition, family breakdown and social inequality drove people to crime. It gave suspects their own stories and cast light on the social shadows behind each case. When asked in his lifetime about the secret to the show's popularity, Choi said it was, at its core, a humanist social-commentary drama rather than a straightforward crime series.

Detective Park Yeong-han reshaped the image of the television detective for viewers of that era. The character was written as a veteran investigator in his 50s, but Choi was only in his early 30s when he took the role in 1971 — playing a man nearly two decades his senior. The sight of Choi pulling a trench coat closed, cigarette in hand, surveying a crime scene earned the character the nickname "Korea's Columbo." Yet Park's appeal went beyond appearance. Rather than shouting down suspects, Park drew out their stories in a quiet voice, and even while delivering them to justice never turned away from the human circumstances that had led them to crime. The line "The taller the building, the longer the shadow" has been quoted for decades precisely because Park refused to reduce crime to mere individual failing.

Choi Bool-am named "Susa Banjang" the work he treasured most in his life. In a 2007 essay collection, he looked back on the series as "the cornerstone that built my acting," and wrote that "even now, just hearing the theme music makes my heart race." If the rural drama series "Jeonwon Ilgi (Country Diary)" was the shining wings that lifted him to a higher plane, "Susa Banjang" was the foundation on which the actor Choi Bool-am was built. In a 2017 appearance on KBS 2TV's "1 vs. 100," Choi again cited "Susa Banjang" as the work he had poured himself into in his youth. Though he would spend decades remembered as "the nation's father figure" and as Chairman Kim, the role that left the deepest mark on Choi Bool-am the actor was Detective Park Yeong-han.

The influence of the detective Choi portrayed extended well beyond the drama itself. In 1972, while "Susa Banjang" was still on the air, the police commissioned Choi as an honorary inspector. After a promotion to honorary senior inspector in 1977, his rank stayed unchanged for 35 years. In 2012, the Korean National Police Agency promoted Choi and director Lee Yeon-heon to honorary superintendent, describing "Susa Banjang" as a drama that had come to symbolize police investigation. The agency said at the time that, with the standing of police investigations transformed by revisions to the Code of Criminal Procedure, the promotion was a way to honor the production team's contribution. Then-Commissioner General Jo Hyeon-o said that even 23 years after the finale, "Susa Banjang" remained the drama people named first when asked to name one that represented the police.

Further promotions followed — to honorary assistant commissioner in 2018 and honorary commissioner in 2021. That same year, to mark the 50th anniversary of "Susa Banjang," Choi was appointed the inaugural honorary director of the detective division. An anecdote holds that Choi was first offered the title of honorary director of the investigation bureau, but turned it down saying, "I'm a detective for life," and chose the detective division post instead. In June 2024, Choi was promoted to honorary deputy commissioner general and named honorary director of the National Investigation Headquarters. The police also recognized his work on drug-prevention campaigns and the production of a documentary on the future of policing. In 2023, Choi was the first participant in the anti-drug campaign "No Exit," saying he joined "with both a sense of remorse, as one of the older generation, for failing to stop drugs from spreading this far in our society, and a fervent wish that drugs must be eradicated."

"Susa Banjang" endured as an archetype in Korean popular culture long after it ended. In 2024, MBC aired "Susa Banjang 1958," a prequel to the original that depicted the young Detective Park Yeong-han before he became chief, set against the backdrop of 1958. Park Jae-beom, the writer behind "Yeolhyeol Saje (The Fiery Priest)," served as creator; Kim Yeong-sin wrote the screenplay; and Kim Seong-hun, director of the film "Confidential Assignment," helmed the production. Lee Je-hoon played the young Park Yeong-han, while Lee Dong-hwi, Choi Woo-seong and Yun Hyeon-su took the roles of Kim Sang-sun, Jo Gyeong-hwan and Seo Ho-jeong, respectively. The series carried forward the original's tradition of naming the detectives after the actors who played them, reviving the memory of the old investigative unit. Nam Seong-hun also appeared as the youngest constable at Jongnam Police Station.

Choi made a special appearance in the first episode as an elderly Park Yeong-han, putting on the trench coat again for the first time in 35 years. The drama opens with the retired detective visiting his grandson, who works at a police station. Choi's Park arrives with snacks and a fresh pair of socks for the young man, then pauses to look at an old photograph of former colleagues hanging on the wall. The screen then shifts back to 1958 and the story of the young Park Yeong-han unfolds. It was the moment the original lead handed the stage to a new actor — and the moment the era of Park Yeong-han that Choi Bool-am had created passed to the next generation.

At the production press conference, Lee Je-hoon admitted to being nervous playing the young Park Yeong-han in front of Choi. The advice Choi offered was: "I'd like Park Yeong-han to be full of anger on the inside." Lee said the goal was not to imitate Choi's appearance or manner of speech, but to inherit the spirit and heart of the character. Where Choi's Park Yeong-han was a complete detective who had learned to understand the human condition through long years of investigation, Lee's Park was a young man still growing — one who raged against injustice and threw himself headlong into it.

The final episode of "Susa Banjang 1958" closed with a farewell scene that bridged the original and the new series. The elderly Park Yeong-han visited the graves of colleagues who had died before him. Calling out the names of Kim Sang-sun, Jo Gyeong-hwan, Seo Ho-jeong and Nam Seong-hun one by one, he laid flowers at each headstone. "I must miss you all — I can't seem to sleep," he said, then raised a salute to his old comrades and, instead of the customary "Loyalty," said simply, "Farewell." The finale, which aired May 18, 2024, drew a 10.6 percent nationwide viewership rating according to Nielsen Korea. That scene stood as Park Yeong-han's goodbye within the story — and as what felt like Choi Bool-am's final salute to the role that had defined 18 years of his life on screen.