Why do we travel when we are tired and weary? Unfamiliar space itself gives vitality and stimulation that are hard to come by in daily life. It’s not just because of new encounters and experiences. The further one moves away from everyday life, the lighter the weight of life that weighs on me. The roles that society desires, the expectations of people around me, the look that does not allow things that deviate from the given rails, etc. The things that I did not come from myself have been superimposed without my knowledge. In order to protect myself from things that hide my true self and reduce my self-esteem, sometimes I need a new encounter with an unknown space. It’s the same reason you can easily confide in someone you’re meeting for the first time out of the blue about your hard-to-tell worries to your close friends or family.
Jae-heon (Yoo Yeon-seok) and Jin-ah (Lee Yeon-hee) from
Here is a man tired of life. Jaeheon, who was running on the track of an exemplary life, leaves for Argentina, leaving everything behind in a sudden burnout. Yoo Yeon-seok expressed Jae-heon’s position and explained. “Maybe from that day on, Jaeheon’s watch was set to exotic South American time, which was passing slowly. Working as a local wine delivery boy in Buenos Aires, I could say I became semi-local. Rather than running away, it was a person going to live. It’s the off season of life, and I think it’s a time for reorganization.
One day, Jae-heon meets Jin-ah, who has just traveled from Korea, and the story leads to the story of a woman who has been betrayed by her life. Jin-ah is unilaterally informed of her breakup with her longtime boyfriend. Jin-ah, who couldn’t take even a single vacation because she was a non-regular worker, took the bankbook she had kept with her boyfriend and went to Buenos Aires, the furthest place in Korea. “Jinah is a person who represents a young man who is going through a difficult time. When he encounters a wall where he can’t do anything, he encounters Jae-heon at the place where he came to rest for a while.” (Lee Yeon-hee) The face of youth, which does not lose its radiance in the face to difficulties, shines like Lee Yeon-hee’s tailored clothes.
The scenes shot on the Argentinian site for 20 days are beautifully put together and show things that can’t easily be tried in real life. Actress Lee Yeon-hee said, “I shot in the summer of 2019, and it wasn’t easy because it was winter in Buenos Aires. However, I thought it might be an opportunity to discover a new side of myself while etching exotic landscapes into my eyes,” he recalled at the time. “When I arrived in Argentina, it was like a black and white photo because I didn’t know anywhere. But when I went to a place where they danced tango, I felt like a colorful color was added to it as if I had touched it with a brush. As he said, it is the tango, the cultural heritage that symbolizes Argentina, that connects the clumsy Jaeheon and Jinah in
Actor Yoo Yeon-seok expressed the tango as a dance of sympathy and breathing, recalling the time he had learned. The “emotional connection that emerges through the exchange of emotions and energy” comes to life with every movement. Actress Lee Yeon-hee explained that the relationship between Jae-heon and Jin-ah also resembles a tango. “When I share what I have, my own problems and struggles with someone else, it’s like tango in that the feeling of consolation deepens and focuses.” The time of comfort and communion is also naturally reflected in the looks between the two actors. “It was our first time meeting in a real drama, so it was unfamiliar to us, but in a foreign land, we leaned on each other and talked about acting, and we we got along naturally.” (Yoo Yeon-seok)
Both actors agreed that the most impressive moment of filming in Argentina was the two days of getting off the plane and adjusting to jet lag. It’s time to set a table by the roadside and drink wine together. A strange feeling of liberation from an unknown space. An experience like a gift to oneself, a stone’s throw from all that is familiar. A time of questioning where we discover a new facet of someone we thought we knew well and matured with tango and wine. In this way, we forgive yesterday’s self, find today’s self, and move on to tomorrow. The two actors who put on clear and heartfelt performances are incredibly adorable.
