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New images from « Merry Berry Love »… provide a glimpse into the first meeting between Ji Chang-wook and Imada Mio. But behind this romance between a Korean man and a Japanese woman, the two actors themselves had to deal with the language barrier during filming, even going so far as to help each other with their lines.
«Merry Berry Love» is set on a remote Japanese island and follows Lee Yoo-bin (Ji Chang-wook), a Korean interior designer whose life is turned upside down overnight. After losing everything, he sets off for Charo Island, where he crosses paths with Shirahama Karin (Imada Mio), a strawberry farmer who is passionate about her work.
A perfectionist and a city dweller, Yoo-bin seems to have very little in common with Karin. Yet their meeting will gradually bring about an unexpected change in his life.
Ji Chang-wook and Imada Mio start off with a misunderstanding
The new images released by CJ ENM and Nippon TV highlight the contrast between the two characters. Yoo-bin and Karin still appear on their guard, each observing the other with a certain degree of suspicion. Their first meeting won’t go exactly as planned, as a misunderstanding will spark their initial exchange.
The perfectionist city dweller and the warm-hearted strawberry farmer will thus have to learn to understand each other despite their very different lifestyles. This dynamic was particularly important to Ji Chang-wook, who explains that he talked a lot with his co-star during filming.
«“Merry Berry Love” is a project in which the chemistry between Yoo-bin and Karin is important, so Mio and I often talked about it,» he said.
Their off-camera chemistry even ended up finding its way directly into the drama: some of the everyday conversations that Ji Chang-wook and Imada Mio actually had were incorporated into the show's dialogue.
They helped each other overcome the language barrier
However, the shoot presented an additional challenge for the two actors: Ji Chang-wook and Imada Mio do not speak the same language.
Rather than letting this difference become an obstacle, they decided to help each other. Each of them thus became, in a way, the other’s language teacher: Ji Chang-wook helped his co-star with her Korean lines, while Imada Mio helped him with his Japanese.
«Mio and I helped each other learn our lines in Korean and Japanese,» explains Ji Chang-wook, who particularly highlights the actress’s help in mastering the intonation and nuances of his Japanese dialogue.
This collaboration therefore benefited both their acting and the relationship between their characters, whose story itself revolves around the meeting of two people from South Korea and Japan.
Following the initial reports showing Lee Yoo-bin forced to start over far from home, these new scenes offer a glimpse into the early days of his relationship with Karin—marked by mistrust, misunderstandings, and a gradual growing closeness.
«Merry Berry Love» will be available starting on October 7 on Disney+ worldwide.
