Netflix’s latest Korean film My Name is Loh Kiwan, starring Song Joong-ki and Choi Sung-eun, hits close to home with its earnest story of an illegal immigrant’s struggle for a safer life in a rich country.
Based on the Korean novel I Met Loh Kiwan by Cho Hae-jin, the film directed by Kim Hee-jin revolves around a young North Korean man, Loh Kiwan (Song Joong-ki), who defects to Belgium to start afresh after a life of extreme hardship in China and his mother’s death.
The film begins with a tense moment — Loh Kiwan cleaning blood off the road, tears streaking his anxious face. The scene sets the stage for a tale of survival that comes at the cost of painful sacrifices, symbolising the extremes that immigrants may have to go in securing refugee status in a foreign country.
On entering Belgium, Loh Kiwan is pushed against the wall by the terms and conditions stipulated by the Belgium government to prove his North Korean citizenship. As he runs from pillar to post to collect documents for the process, he also faces scrutiny and hostility as an outsider.
In this melee, Loh Kiwan crosses paths with Marie (Choi Sung-eun), a former shooting athlete who has taken to drug use and is reeling under her own share of miseries. Marie makes off with the cash that Loh Kiwan had on him, leaving him homeless in freezing temperatures.
This kicks off a subplot, with Loh Kiwan and Marie gradually leaving aside their initial aggression to appreciate each other’s struggles and finally leaning on each other for comfort and hope.
What the film does right is focusing less on the immigration system of a nation and more on the grim reality of the marginalisation one faces as a refugee in an alien land. Loh Kiwan’s journey is a reflection of the situation of immigrants around the world who live dangerously and are exploited mercilessly but take pride in their heritage, embrace their identities with resilience and believe in finding their rightful place.
What My Name is Loh Kiwan finally becomes is a tale of personal loss, grief and daring to love under great adversity. And both Song Joong-ki and Cho Sung-eun shine in their respective roles — Song Joong-ki makes Loh Kiwan’s vulnerability and helplessness his own, while Cho Sung-eun channels Marie’s disguised desperation. Their performances and director Kim Hee-jin’s honest storytelling pull the second half, which is not as gripping as the first half, through.
The film’s ending might come as a surprise as Loh Kiwan takes an unexpected decision. But when he says, ‘My answer was to never live in a country but the right to leave it whenever I want’, Loh Kiwan’s final action – and the film’s message — makes perfect sense.
