Veteran actor Choi Bul-am, beloved for decades as the eternal Chief Park of MBC’s landmark detective series “Chief Inspector,” has died at the age of 87, Sports Kyunghyang reported on October 30. Choi died on the night of October 29 at a hospital in Seoul’s Gangseo district while receiving treatment, closing a 67-year acting career.
His passing carries a particular poignancy: with Choi gone, all four of the original “Chief Inspector” detectives have now died. Choi was the last surviving member of the quartet that anchored the series, and his death reunites the team that defined the detective genre on Korean screens.
Choi’s final work was, fittingly, a return to the role that made him a household name. In MBC’s 2024 prequel “Chief Inspector 1958,” he made a special appearance as the elderly Park Young-han. In his last filmed scene, the old detective visited the graves of his departed colleagues, touching their tombstones and greeting them as if they were still beside him.
“I wish I could live here too,” he said in the scene. “Maybe because I miss you all, I can’t sleep well. I’m going now. Goodbye.” What was written as a tribute to the show’s original fans has now become, in retrospect, the actor’s real farewell to the colleagues he outlived.
“Chief Inspector” ran from 1971 to 1989, an extraordinary 18-year run that established the detective drama as a fixture of Korean television. Built with advice from real investigators, the series won explosive popularity, and its influence was so great that all four of its leads were appointed honorary police officers. The show even produced a famous anecdote in which a criminal, mistaking Choi for a real policeman during filming, fled and was caught.
Choi had watched his fellow detectives leave one by one: Nam Seong-hun died in 2002, followed by Jo Gyeong-hwan in 2012 and Kim Sang-soon in 2015. When Kim died, Choi said his heart ached all the more because, as the chief, he was left alone while his detectives were gone. At the time of the 2024 prequel, he spoke of the guilt of being the only one still alive.
Choi regarded “Chief Inspector” as the greatest work of his life, the role that followed him from his youth into old age. The quartet that spent 18 years solving cases on screen is now reunited beyond it.
