‘My Name is Loh Kiwan’ review: a devastating battle with survival

4 March, 2024

my name is loh kiwan review song joong-ki Choi Sung-eun

At many points during My Name is Loh Kiwan, it’s hard to feel hopeful. The titular character’s (played by Song Joong-ki) journey is one so mired in setbacks and shattering losses it feels like any flames of optimism that could be burning have been snuffed out to just a few embers, persistently but feebly continuing to glow.

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Loh Kiwan is a North Korean defector, but getting out of his home country – a journey we’re not shown – is far from the end of his struggles. First, he heads to China with his mother, but an incident means he has to go into hiding. When the Chinese police turn up at the restaurant his mum works at looking for him, they initiate a chase through the snowy Yanjin streets that ends brutally – but allows Kiwan to seek shelter far further afield.

Safely in Belgium, he applies to be taken in as a refugee but faces a drawn-out, months-long process and nowhere to live or work in the meantime. With no cash and unable to speak English or French, he’s forced to be resourceful, sleeping in public toilets to stay out of the bitter cold and rummaging for used bottles in bins that he can exchange for a fistful of coins. Belgium might not come with the threat of being deported back to North Korea, but it has its own dangers – including gangs of youths who beat Kiwan up and launch his shoes into the local pond.

After one such incident, a drenched Kiwan stumbles into a launderette and collapses in the corner. Lee Marie (Beyond Evil’s Choi Sung-eun) – a Korean-Belgium girl who seems, at first, just rebellious and angsty but is later revealed to be facing her own issues – steals his wallet, the only thing he has left from his mother. Together at the police station the next day, it seems unlikely that the pair will become meaningful people to each other. As they spend more time together, they forge a bond that adds a little more fuel to the fire of those last sparks of hope. Unfortunately, though, the film rushes their relationship with each other, making that connection feel like an unbelievable crack in an otherwise solid story.

Both Song Joong-ki and Choi Sung-eun are phenomenal throughout Kim Hee-jin’s feature film debut, transforming My Name is Loh Kiwan into a film that will stay with you for a long time. Song plays Kiwan to perfection, making the endless pain and disappointments of so-called liberation viscerally real, while Choi brings multitudes to Marie, slowly unravelling new parts of her as we see her in different situations and scenarios. In other hands, the movie would likely still have impact, but together, these actors take it to powerful heights.

Nothing here is overwrought – Kiwan has hardly been afforded the luxury in his life of being able to wallow in dramatics or cause a big scene. He has to keep moving, keep going, keep hoping if he wants any chance of survival at all. Marie, meanwhile, is spiralling in the shadows – drawing attention to her downfall will only bring interference from her father. This quiet unfolding of its story is part of what makes My Name is Loh Kiwan such a heart-wrenching watch, its devastation coming from its characters enforced resilience, constantly clinging on, hoping things don’t go completely dark.