At the opening of a documentary on the life of Jimmy Lai, pronounced “Lie,” we hear words from a Chinese proverb. “If you are a bird, you would rather die singing than living a quiet life.”
Lai was never destined to live a quiet life, as we learn in “The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom,” released in 2022 by Acton Films. He was born in China in 1948, the son of a successful businessman. The next year, the Communists under Mao Zedong overthrew the government.