‘My Name Is Loh Kiwan’: A Profoundly Poignant Film, Starring Song Joong-ki

My Name Is Loh Kiwan recently dropped its official teaser, starring Song Joong-ki as the eponymous Loh Kiwan seeking an existence in a foreign land through hardships while also navigating love. The upcoming romance melodrama film, directed by Kim Hee-Jin, follows writer Cho Hae-jin’s distinguished classic short novel, I Met Loh Kiwan, which was translated into English in 2019.

After making his Cannes debut with the gripping noir movie Hopeless (2023), My Name Is Loh Kiwan marks Song Joong-ki’s return to cinema with another poignant tale underscoring his penchant for intense storylines—his most notable dramas, for example, The Innocent Man (2012), Descendants of the Sun (2016), Arthdal Chronicles (2019), Vincenzo (2021), and Reborn Rich (2022)—as well as his hit films—A Werewolf Boy (2012), The Battleship Island (2017), and Space Sweepers (2021).

My Name Is Loh Kiwan casts Song as a North Korean defector who escapes to Belgium for a life. Obtaining refugee status from Belgian officials is his sole chance to stay there. And so, begins an arduous journey—one in which he wrestles with what he pursues—in a culture where he is unknown to all and hardly comprehends a thing, least of all their language.

In rough times, Loh meets Marie (Choi Sung-eun), a former shooter who is a Belgian citizen of Korean origin. Unlike Loh, who longs to start afresh, she lives in abject misery with no rationale for being. Even so, they wind up falling in love with each other as the story evolves.

The Korea Times once interviewed writer Cho Hae-jin about her prolific writing, citing I Met Loh Ki Wan as one of her finest pieces. In it, Kim, a television writer, learns about Loh Kiwan and resolves to meet him. The novel relies mainly on Loh’s diary, which Kim uses to recount his awful, lonely, and humiliating experiences as a runaway in another nation.

In the interview, it is stated that I Met Loh Kiwan depicts the defection process, impoverished living conditions, a wave of hunger in North Korea in the latter part of the 1990s, dubbed the “Arduous March,” and the enrollment procedure for refugee status.

The preview for My Name Is Loh Kiwan suggests that the movie will faithfully convey the emotions of the novel, which pertain to someone’s existence and perhaps life in general, where you are occasionally compelled to comply even when you know that things are not in your best interests. It’s a story, I think, that speaks to the common language of longing and aspirations while still maintaining each aspect of Loh Kiwan’s experiences—a widely familiar tale of desertion and despair and also a stirring tale of resilience and resolve.

My Name Is Loh Kiwan will premiere on Netflix on March 1, 2024.