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bedofroses

Saturn

bedofroses

Saturn
Hot Stove League korean drama review
Completed
Hot Stove League
0 people found this review helpful
by bedofroses
Jun 3, 2024
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 7.5
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

A must watch with a brilliant story and first-class acting by all the characters

There are so many things to love in this show.
1. It's an almost perfect watch. A well-written story with great acting from the actors. I did not feel disconnected with any of the characters which goes to show that all of them did a great job.
2. The story in itself is pretty good. For someone who does not know baseball other than the fact that Moneyball was an amazing movie, I did not feel lost even once. Yes, there were terms thrown here and there like ERA (or something) but you don't need to understand them to understand the story. I love that I did not have to learn about the sport to enjoy the drama. It was a perfect depiction of sports management, and I loved it.
3. It is one of my favourite genres: politics (internal politics) and business. I loved watching how they did not bring in fancy tropes, try to unnecessarily bring in some romance or just try to throw off the show using some cliche drama. The focus was clear since the first episode: the show was about a sports team that will be disbanded and how will we prevent that. While sticking to their concept and plot, they depicted various beautiful stories through the different characters and it was a very pleasant and easy watch.
4. I actually enjoyed watching the individual stories of most of these people. This show has made me laugh, cry and be in awe - all at the same time. There was no over-the-top reliance on any one character and equal importance was given to all of them to depict how a team works together and what goes on behind the scenes. It was fun watching that.

While all of this was good, I have two problems with the show which made me deduct some points from the rating:
1. I do not like the demonisation of Kyung Min. If it was my team that was causing me only losses and had such grave mismanagement for multiple years, I would pull out my investment as well. I'm running a business, not a charity. If he was unable to sell the team, he is TOTALLY justified in disbanding the team. His only fault was that he was so muddled up in his own prejudice that he employed the wrong means of achieving his goals. So, this entire comments section seems pretty harsh and unrealistic to me where he is being vilified.
2. Towards the end, it got caught up in so much politics that I did not enjoy the last two episodes much. In fact the end was so underwhelming that I was wondering if it had been conceptualised by the same person who wrote the other 14 episodes. I was also thinking about how childish it seems.

It is a brilliant watch and I believe it is quite underrated looking at its rating here. It is a fresh break from usual rom-com kdramas and is very well acted and narrated. Loved almost every second of watching this one!
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