My Name Is Loh Kiwan Plot Summary
My Name is Loh Kiwan starts with Loh Kiwan having a meal on his birthday with his mother, getting ready to leave for work. Loh Kiwan and his mother are North Korean defectors, and Loh Kiwan has to hide his identity since the police are looking for him after he intervened and helped a friend whom their former boss assaulted. Therefore, he has to stay in the house while his mother goes out to work.
That night was freezing, unlike other snowy nights, and Loh Kiwan worried about his mother. Meanwhile, the police arrive at his mother’s workplace, and while interrogating her about Loh Kiwan, he suddenly comes to check up on her.
The mother and son are forced to run as the police chase after them, which ends badly with his mother’s death after being hit by a truck. His mother’s last wish is for Loh Kiwan to find refuge so he does not have to look over his shoulder. Therefore, His uncle helps him get an air ticket to Belgium after selling his mother’s body on the black market.
Does Loh Kiwan receive refugee status in Belgium?
Applying for refugee status after Loh Kiwan lands in Belgium is arduous. After arrival, he does not get his refugee status immediately, so he cannot get a job. While waiting for the day of his following interview, Loh Kiwan becomes homeless and spends his nights on the floor of a public toilet.
Loh Kiwan rummages through dustbins for food and water before he starts to sell used bottles for coins, which he uses for his next meal. One day, the public toilet he spends his night in is out of order, and he comes across some teenagers who beat him up.
He falls into the river and then passes out in a laundry, where he first encounters Marie when she steals his wallet. Marie recommends that he work at a factory, and for the first time, he gets to sleep in a warm room and has a bed, food, transport, and friends.
Loh Kiwan is still having a hard time in the process of seeking asylum since the ones in charge fail to believe that he is a North Korean Defector and not from another country that wants to take advantage of his refugee status in Belgium. The process is time-consuming and psychologically draining, but Marie’s father steps in and introduces him to an attorney.
At the meat factory, Kiwan makes a friend, Sun-joo, when she protects her from work bullying and helps him assimilate quickly into the new work environment. She offers to speak on his behalf in court when he shares that he is struggling to prove that he is from North Korea. However, on the day of the hearing, Sun-joo betrays him and says that she thinks that he is a Chinese-Korean who wants to obtain refugee status for benefits. She also talks about Loh Kiwan’s name.
Therefore, Loh Kiwan leaves his job at the factory and works as a waiter and dishwasher at a restaurant. Sun-joo meets him one morning before the police take her away and explains that a refugee officer threatened to close down the factory and not renew Sun-joo’s visa status if she spoke for him. Regardless, the officer did not renew her visa, and she was deported after apologising to Loh Kiwan.
However, she makes up for her mistake when she returns to China and finds an article about his mother’s accident, proving that Loh Kiwan was telling the truth. The evidence could have been enough to get his refugee status approved, but Marie’s absence from the court worries him, and he leaves in the middle of the hearing. Later, in a letter Loh Kiwan sends to Marie’s father, he says that after Marie left the country, he worked relentlessly and finally got his refugee status approved.
Why does Marie abruptly leave Belgium?
Marie starts doing drugs after finding out that her father approved the use of euthanasia on her mother. She owes her dealer money and works for him as his shooter in underground betting to pay her debts. She wants out and steals Loh Kiwan’s money to pay her debts.
However, when Kiwan asks for his wallet back and tells her he got the money from selling his mother’s body, Marie returns to her dealer to ask for the wallet back. She makes a deal to participate in the upcoming match and wins for Kiwan’s sake. However, she still wants out, and the next time the dealer threatens her to participate in a rigged match, she intentionally shoots out of target, thinking that he will let her go, but it does not work.
On the day of Kiwan’s hearing, the dealer calls her when she is about to enter the courthouse and threatens to kill Kiwan if she fails to cooperate. Marie arrives at the dealer’s place and finds his competitor waiting for her.
The deal was for Marie to play one more game to pay the competitor back the money her dealer owes, but the competitor changes the deal upon her arrival, demanding that she become his shooter. The dealer gets angry and kills the competitor and his guards. He plans to escape to Amsterdam to set up a bigger gambling spot and wants Marie to leave with him.
Marie does not want to go, and the dealer starts to beat her up and asks his men to take her away. Loh Kiwan suddenly arrives to her rescue, and when the dealer almost stabs Kiwan after a fight, Marie shoots him. She wants to kill him, but Kiwan stops her, and they run away from the spot, hand in hand, to hide out before the competitor’s men arrive.
However, Kiwan knows that the gang members will continue looking for Marie since they want her to participate in the competitions. Therefore, the only way to keep Marie safe and give her a chance to start over is for her to leave Belgium. Marie has citizenship status and can freely move in and out of Belgium, but Loh Kiwan cannot leave. Therefore, Marie leaves Belgium alone, and Loh Kiwan promises to ensure they find each other and travel worldwide together.
Why is Marie angry with her father, and why does she forgive him?
After her mother’s death, Marie finds out that her father approved euthanasia, and she blames him for killing her mother. On the day she leaves Belgium to escape the gang members after her, she opens up to her father, saying that seeing how her mother was suffering made her wish she would sleep and not wake up.
Therefore, when she died, Marie felt guilty and blamed herself, but after finding out what her father did, she directed her guilt on him even though she knew it was the right thing to do. Her father tells her the secret he has been keeping for years since her mother begged him not to tell Marie that she is the one who chose to die by euthanasia.
Marie apologises to her father, and the father and daughter make up before she leaves, promising to inform him after she gets somewhere safe.
Does Loh Kiwan and Marie end up together?
Loh Kiwan’s refugee status is approved, and one year after Marie leaves Belgium, he does not feel happy. He does not like living as a refugee without any right to move from country to country as he wishes freely. He realises he cares more
about having the right to leave a country whenever he likes. Therefore, he decides to stop following his mother’s wish and to take a risk. He leaves his job in Belgium to see Marie.
What happens at the end of My Name is Loh Kiwan?
Marie is shocked to see Loh Kiwan, but she soon recovers, and the film ends as they run into each other’s arms. My Name is Loh Kiwan offers the audience a peek into the lives of refugees, exploring the themes of grief, sorrow, desperation, hopelessness, and finding hope in love.
It gives an outlook of the universal challenges and struggles that people displaced from their homes and seeking asylum in other countries go through, told through the experiences of Loh Kiwan. The film is heart-gripping, with so many emotions perfectly conveyed through Loh Kiwan’s fantastic acting.
The two lead characters share similar struggles connected by grief over their mother’s death. However, their circumstances are quite different, with Loh Kiwan vowing to cling to life regardless of the challenges and to keep his promise to his mother. On the other hand, Marie is hopeless, on the verge of collapse and surrendering to despair.
They find comfort in each other, and love blossoms, guiding them through their hardships and into each other’s arms.
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Episode Rating
(4)