What was the Korean guy up to in Crash?

Question

I am confused about the whole story of the Asian guy in the film Crash. Early in the movie, we see him talking to some other guy about the pickup of some items. Later we see him driving the van with the illegal Cambodian immigrants. The only other scenes that he appears in is when Anthony and Peter (in the SUV) run over him and finally in the hospital.

So, I have two questions about the guy,

• What exactly did he intend on doing with the immigrants? Was he trying to help them?
• In the hospital scene, what is the 'check' that he is talking about?

Answer 1

He was a human trafficker. The "cheque" refers to the payment he received for doing this.

The items he was talking about picking up in the film were the illegal Cambodian immigrants. The implication is that he was trafficking them for money (the cheque he was given). From the script, the conversation with the cheque is:

Choi (trafficker): It's been good doing business with you.
Park: How soon can I have them?
Choi: I'm picking them up right now.

So he was delivering them to Park.

Towards the end of the film, he was in an accident and was obviously hospitalised. His wife found him and the man realises that he has not completed delivery of the trafficked Cambodians. He was given a cheque for this deal, and realising the cheque will be cancelled if the delivery is not completed, he tells his wife to go and cash it immediately, before it is cancelled.

That is the cheque they are referring to.

Of course, as a side note, in the real world it's highly unlikely a trafficking operation would give payment via cheques - as opposed to cash, or something else untraceable.