At first I was not convinced by this drama, but it drew me in. Mainly because it told the story straight and didn’t try to avoid or gloss over the character failings. It has the feeling of something outside the normal Kdrama style of story. Perhaps that comes from being an adaptation of a novel. Novelists are often freer to express themselves and less pressured to the accepted norms of the entertainment industry.

This is not for the morally squeamish. If you like your male leads to be whiter than white this is not the drama for you. It is not afraid to dabble in the sort of dirty dealings that are the bread and butter of competitive and cutthroat industries like sport.

It has a simple straightforward plot which showcases the character development that forms the heart of the story. This is a strength in the second half of the show, but for me it didn’t work well in the first half.

At the beginning the FL appears too innocent for the traumas that she had experienced when young. This made it difficult to fully believe in the relationships and interactions she had with others. She is a character that knows how to use aggression to win, however, when she is harassed she doesn’t fight back but allows herself to be pushed into something that she could have escaped from. I think that more insight was needed into her internal feelings and reasonings to make this part work. However, increasingly, Kim So Hye came to the table and visibly grew up.

Lee Sang Yeob (an actor I like watching) convinced as the unscrupulous agent, but I had to do some hard work to overcome the ambivalence created by some of his character’s actions early on. Congrats to the director for not forcing the melo too much. It helped to keep the viewer grounded in the reality of the story.

A quick shout out for Park Ji Hwan, who made a great job of the hypocritical asshole villain. My skin crawled every time he was on screen.

If you have come for the romance, you will probably be disappointed. It is there but not in the forefront. This is more a story about shining a light on yourself, facing your weaknesses, taking responsibility and changing. I didn’t find the romance part of it particularly convincing. But having said that, I did feel that Kim So Hye found the innocence of the character early on in this regard and played it sweetly.

Finally, a quibble that I have, and this goes for a number of sports/action type shows, is that the industry requirement for female actors to be rake thin means that their body types are not credible for the physicality which these roles demand. In reality, bantam weight boxers are pretty muscled up, so there is constantly a huge credibility gap to be negotiated.

Overall, not a brilliant show, but with enough edge to make it stand out as individual.