Racket Boys

Warm, cozy comfort

This is such a fun sports drama. I’m usually not a fan of sports dramas, but they really outdid themselves with this. It had a good pacing, and was rather insightful and motivating, not to mention that the story was great.

I had a lot of fun watching this show. The main badminton plot was interjected by the stories of the lives of everyone in the village, which was a welcome respite and somehow didn’t take away from the show at all. My favourite villagers have to be the city couple, watching them grow and bond together with the villagers was extremely sweet.

This is a show about growing up and getting better, about outdoing yourself, sportsmanship and class.
It was wonderfully written and executed.

Read More

Wholesome & Lighthearted

The wholesomeness of this show has led me to post my first ever review of a Kdrama series and whilst I am more of a fan for romcoms this show has warranted special recognition for its natural and comforting story. I loved each character and the way in which friendship grew between the boys. Although, I loved the sports aspect I wish there was more of a focus on the competitive side of sports and also more sport action would have put the cherry on top. Regardless, this was a show that I would 100% rewatch again as it had everything you could ever ask for in a hit show. I hope they make a second season. Otherwise... I am craving for more sports kdramas! Give this show a try! You'll love it quirkiness!

Read More

Innocent, light and refreshing

This series is a breath of fresh air, literally! The country setting and the vibe of the small rural community brings back memories of summers in my grandparents village. The story revolves around ordinary people with extraordinary hearts. In a time where people are cooped up in tiny spaces and in isolation because of Covid, the camaraderie and warmth of local folks caring for each other, even going out of their way to lend a hand, was heartwarming, refreshing, and hopeful to be honest.

The sport itself is not the most technical so if you want to watch it for the sports side be prepared to be disappointed, however, it would be unfair to judge it only for that. What you will witness instead is the development of friendship that was brought together by the sport and one can tell that this relationship is for keeps! From the awkward first introduction to the proud and trusting faces in the final games, these boys are bonded for life!

The only thing I thought awkward was the dad/coach, I couldn’t quite understand what his role was exactly. It would seem that he’s vested in the team and in the next episode it doesn’t seem like it. This made it hard for me to relate to his character. It seemed like the writer needed a coach but can’t seem to decide if he is to be strict or be the easygoing type and yet the boys needed to get to the final game. That is just my own opinion and in no way reflect his acting ability. Speaking of which, the young cast was just perfect and the acting chops are impressive. The FL, though, I thought was a little on the flat side but maybe this was just her character no? The adults were all good too!

My final say is go and watch this without delay if you like something light, innocent and funny :) Don’t forget to thank me later, lol ;)

Read More

Friends and family united to one sport

I think that the best thing about this drama is how the young characters are extremely captivating. Each one is different but they really complete each other, it's impossible to not like one them. Haekang can be immature sometimes but he's a really caring guy and really talented. Yoondam, as the oldest, is cautious and reserved but he's also friendly and cute. Woochan and Yong Tae are SO SO CUTE I adopted them after this show. And as every team has a "brain" in it, here we have Insol to do this part. He's intelligent and altought he looks cold outside he's also caring and really cute. I loved all of them. The girls are also captivating. Seyoon is the "prestigious" and talented girl but besides that she have a lot of insecurites and she's also a very good friend. Hansol is also cute and friendly. All characters have their own issues and all of them have one episode which their story is focused on, so that they can learn with their mistakes, grow up and mature.

I thought that the romance was a bad thing in the beggining but then I LOVED. I screamed so much in a lot of the couple scenes, the characters are really cute and adorable. In general, Racket Boys is an interesting drama because I never saw a sport drama focused on Badminton scenes, so this already makes the drama interesting to watch. And if you like something focused on friendship and a little bit of romance its going to be perfect for you. As the sport scenes, they were really well filmed as well, the director was awesome in this and made the games look really excting.

I can't say it's all perfect, I do think we had some problems and characters who really didn't fit the ton of the drama. Haekang's father was really annoying too, altought he do got better later. But I think that the young characters are so good, cute, their friendship and chemistry is so good, that we end up liking after all. And as I said, a sport drama focused in Badminton is also new and interesting.

So yeah, If you like squads, friendship, romance, cute characters and some good sport scenes, I recommend this. This is mostly like a TEEN drama as the main characters are teenagers, so don't expect something extremly deep and serious (altought we do have some scenes)

Read More

?Don't Boo Talented Kids! ~❎️~ This Couldn't Be Cuter? °8.3° °Excellent°

This is a charming coming of age tale against the backdrop of country life and high school sports.

RB is a great show for families to watch together, as long as the subtitles aren't an obstacle. Qualities that the show reinforces include: Loyalty, standing up for what's right, defending the weak, hard work, compassion, respect, and teamwork.

It follows badminton teams from schools in rural Korea. There's not alot to do in a town that doesn't have sufficient population to support many forms of entertainment. It's even difficult to get wifi. Sports and friendships are what the kids work on most. We follow them through regular match-ups, individual and team competitions, and various family dynamics, as they gradually become a cohesive unit. The show, additionally, addresses the problem of vicious hazing and other abuses that can arise in a group of uber competitive Type-A personalities.

Positive cross-generational relationships are displayed in RB. The elderly couple that lives down the road loves to host the kids. They share a meal and, more significantly, their wifi. In return, the kids help them with reading and operating their cell phones. It's darling.

YIKES! A Fight❕ We see another side of the coin in a town hall where a village elder and one of the young players tackle eachother over conflicting ideas over how to generate more business in town. The problem, apparently, is that they have matching personalities;)l. Neither one of them has good ideas anyway, smh. It's a funny scene.

The kids help plan a birthday party for the oldest grandma in town. The whole thing is precious. As grandma is from Busan, can you guess what movie they played? Yep, the Zombie thriller: Train To Busan. All Young-tae saw was that the title contained the word "Busan." Some of the party-goers didn't open their eyes for 2 hours, lol.

It's impossible to review this show without addressing the controversy that has arisen around it. In ep5, an athlete was met with some boos while playing in Indonesia. There were some that saw this as an insult to their country. In The West we generally don't understand much about Asian culture. It does appear that they are sincere about their complaint as it is a matter of their honor, and we should accept that. However, being offensive was obviously not the intent of Netflix & the show creators.

Instead of giving feedback, a world wide vocal group took to their keyboards and attacked the show and Netflix as if insult was intended. It spread over social media and the ever-outraged went out of their way to give the show a low rating. Most Kdramas have under 3000 viewers on IMDB registering their ratings of a given show. Contrast that with RB, which had a whopping 24k ratings of "1" weeks before all the episodes were out❗ I actually watched RB to find out how bad it was. I'd never seen such a low rating on IMDB.

I wonder if most of the people on the train-to-umbrage actually saw this show before they rapaciously rambled down the tracks? Anyone posting a review having never watched the show is neither genuine nor trustworthy. The show creators are much tougher on their own country than anywhere else. I initially breezed by ep5 and never noticed anything offensive. (To be fair, I'm originally from right outside of Philadelphia, where the fans are notorious for being ill-behaved. I'll grant that my bar must be a little skewed downward by that;)

There's no perfect country. Perhaps everyone should unclutch their pearls, remove the shuttlecock from their eyes, and take a wider-angle view of the issues here: What happens in ep5 is trivial compared to what actually goes on in sports.

Fans in Wembley Stadium have booed during other team's national anthems.

It's shocking to hear that fans in Spain have done monkey chants and thrown bananas at African players⁉️.

Sadly, fans in Philadelphia really did boo Santa and throw snowballs at him.

Suspicions were raised against the New England Patriots that they had listening devices planted in the away locker rooms. Peyton Manning would not discuss anything sensitive in the locker room at Gillette Stadium. Tony Dungee would not allow his players to have possession of their playbooks as anything left in their Boston hotel rooms was liable to end up with Belichick's staff prior to the game. There's other stories of away locker rooms with poor lighting, bad smells, no heat or the thermostat not working right, no hot water, etc etc. Are the outraged here even sports fans? If so, they would know that some fans can be rabid maniacs. Right or wrong, sports is a venue that fans utilize to vent their frustrations.

I've even seen reviewers sneering at badminton: They write that it is a poor concept for a show. Badminton happens to be quite popular in all of Asia. The competition is intense, with the shuttlecocks, or birdies, typically flying off the racket at speeds up to 250 mph. Speeds have been recorded as high as 267 mph. This makes it the fastest sport in the world. That shuttlecock would win its share of pro drag races at those speeds.

Most of the actors in this show are KIDS. They all delivered first rate performances. People are heartless to trash the WHOLE show into which these kids clearly put their whole hearts. Their efforts deserve praise. Kang Hoon-kim (Yong-tae) is particularly special. He is a scene stealer; a top-shelf talent. Tang Joon-sang, who plays Hae-kang, is also quite talented. He plays a boy with Aspergers in Move To Heaven, and the sweetest North Korean soldier ever, in Crash Landing On You {Don't miss that one, btw}. The parts are characters that are completely unique from each other, and he's convincing in these roles. Ahn Se-bin plays the coach's youngest daughter, age 5 or so. She steals every scene she's in, and she also teaches the elderly couple how to read. It's cuteness overload.

Finally, the whole show is cuteness overload. It couldn't be more adorable, and these kids could not be more precious. So give it a fair go and cheer these kids on; even if you are a Pats fan :) ;)

Read More

a well done sports drama

this drama was like being wrapped in a warm blanket while snow is pouring outside. it was well done in my opinion, i think one factor which i didn’t like in this drama was the sub plot. it was hard to sit through mostly because i didn’t really care. especially towards the end where they started focusing more on these characters and plot. i mostly didn’t like it bc it took me away from the main story and i loved the main story but adding a subplot was just not written well in my opinion. it could have been written well but i think the writer just couldn’t do it. i mostly skippped the parts because like i said, i couldn’t care since it felt like it was taking more limelight in the story. all in all, it was a good drama, with most good characters, it had a pretty good balance with sports and drama, and a pretty good solid story.

def recommend;)))

Read More