Racket Boys (2021)

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 ;)

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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)

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?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 :) ;)

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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;)))

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Must watch

I had a huge expectations before it's release because its from the brilliant hands who wrote the masterpiece prison playbook. My expectations didn't wasted. Such a lovely feel good drama. Anyone one can give it a try.. But i have some negative comment to say, not exactly negative but the things only i felt.

The only thing that lack in the later episodes was, there were missing so many continuity between scenes. I understand that. Because initially they were doing with the fullest without looking into the time duration but after some point they want every episode reduce the duration into 1 hour initially it was more than 1 hour. So they started cutting so many scenes. At first i didn't felt that because there were more touching heartwarming scenes so you don't care about anything else. But coming to the finale episodes.. especially in E15 they done so many cuts and it really shows, to many continuity problems.. we can see that. Thank god they did that mainly with the triangle Portions. But to be frank i literally want some more triangle. I don't know why...

Also there were so rush in the finale Episode as well, removed too many matches ,may be they felt people got bored after watching this so many times. Anyway these are my thoughts. But still i can laugh and cry a lot from this whole drama. The bonding of that family and friendship was so amazing and made me jealous.. and the village people, that harmoini oh my god.. all characters were too good..

Must watch drama

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Heartwarming watch

This has to be one of my favorite dramas released this year! It was such a heartwarming and lighthearted watch with everything I was looking for. I would definitely recommend this to someone who has been feeling down lately and just want a happy drama to make things feel easier.
Racket boys gives us a slice of life with sweet teen romance and friendships. The cast is incredible with some of the best kid actors in the industry.
It also promotes badminton which happens to be my most favorite sport that I think is extremely underrated.
The characters go through a fair amount of character development.
Overall I definitely recommend this to anyone watching.

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Racket! SON~YEON~DAN~

Ahhh, what a show! Racket Boys was my happy pill for a long while these past couple of months. It started off with a bang and gave me all the sweet childhood Reply 1988-style vibes for the first half. Unfortunately, the show dragged a bit in the back half — at some point, I felt like there wasn't much plot left, so we filled the time up with badminton scenes that felt repetitive. We also lost a bit of momentum due to COVID, but thankfully, the series wrapped up on a high note. I found myself grinning and laughing as all the loose ends got tied up! I'll miss this crew, and I'm glad we got to see them grow and mature.

By far, the strongest cast members were the kids. All of these child actors are all stars, and they all have such bright futures ahead of them! Tang Joon Sang + Baeksang, WHEN? I hope one day, we'll look back on this cast and marvel at how they were cast on one show together (think: The Heirs). Unfortunately, the adults weren't all quite as strong. I found the dad particularly irritating; he acted so pitiful, irresponsible, and childish at times. You are too old to be acting the way you do. Even by the end, his climactic moment with the kids was still all about HIM rather than the KIDS. I also felt bad for Hae-in; her parents totally neglected her.

Speaking of neglect, the initial storyline of the family dynamic seemed a bit contradictory. The mom wasn't around at first and there was a whole episode on the mother-child dynamic (done so well), and then the problem seemingly... disappeared completely?! We could've gotten a fleshed out struggle (and Oh Na Ra OBVIOUSLY has the talent to handle a more dynamic character), but instead we got her sitting around folding clothes for the whole family as though she were always attentive and present. I did love all the other boys' family dynamics though — the productive and proud Bangs, Woo Chan's gruff and protective father, Yong Tae's alternative father, and In Sol's involved father all offered nice contrast to one another. I also found it odd that In Sol was seemingly added to the main cast halfway through, but dude deserves it. I just wish he had more time to play.

At its best, this show shone — I loved the curry scene, burger scenes (both of them!), Daegu birthday and construction moments, and the first nervous walk in the greenest potato fields. I also loved all the references to BTS, pop culture, and Prison Playbook. There were some clunky moments in between, like the clearly shoe-horned preachy perspectives (on gratitude, country vs city living, etc.) and the dialogue in the father-themed episode that mirrored Reply 1988's first episode heart-to-heart but without any subtlety. And sometimes I felt infuriated by all the screen-time wasted on village meetings and feuds with visitors. But on balance, Racket Boys was a wholesome and heartwarming watch.

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Classic masterpiece!!

I rarely right reviews unless if it is a masterpiece. This is one of the rare classic funny n very refreshing drama I've ever seen till now. This is after watching all 16 eps. It is s complete combo of comedy (100% 🤣), friendship, passion, family, love, romance, caring neighborhood. This drama gives me vibe of reply 1988. Almost every episodes made me laugh like crazy n when they say RACKET.. SoÑYonGdaåN 😂 also there are very touching scenes which made me cry n moved. I'm definitely gonna rewatch this again lol. It's nothing to with reviews coz I watched with empty mind n I don't regret it. It's beyond my expectations and teen fun therapy. You can give it a try without any hesitation n I bet it won't let you down. I can say that this is the best drama of 2021 after Vincenzo!

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IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR FRIENDSHIP KDRAMA THIS IS THE ONE !!!

To be honest , i dont even planed to watch this drama . Not even in my watchlist untill friend of mine asked me to watch it , and guess what ! I REALLY REALLY LOVE THIS and here i am wanna ask all of you to watch it too .

If you dont want to watch it cause of unknown actor and actress , pleasee just watch it . Yes all of them are basicly newbie and some got no experience . Butt the way they potrey thier character is liked an aged actors. I personally loved their acting. All of them nailed their character very much.

The story line :
It's about a group of friends that have the same aim and the same interest which is badminton , with the sport theme . This group of friends get used to each other and become each other best friend . They practice together to archive their aim in life . got some light and cute romance between the boys team and girl team . Did they actually archive their dream ? What happened to them in the end , did they have to prepare a goodbye to each other? please watch it !

My personal opinion:
I loved how each of them get the same screen time , all of them undergo character development . This is so beautiful how they made all of the relationship in this drama are healthy , in this current situation in 2021 , we are surrounded by toxic society . By watching this drama, we might realize that we can find someone that are truly loved us , the one that always support us and its okay to open up our problem to trust someone . And its okay to let your partner see your weakness side (thats mean you are ready to tell her/him everything about you)

All about this drama is so beautiful , i can said this is one of the best drama in this year . it may not have a high rating and very underated but this drama is in another level. i found it has a similar theme with hospital playlist , friendship. In racket boy , they introduced us with a very heartworming teenage boy who are complete each other .. I'm pretty sure every teen craving for their healthy friendship.

I managed to laugh on Monday anf Tuesday night because of this drama , thank you pd for the beautiful story line , istg you will never get bored with them. Their jokes , their chemistry , their loved story ( this is so cute you'll get jelous with 16 years old teen romance for real ) their relationship with their coach , how they trust each other and the most important thing is their teamwork!!!

GO AND WATCH IT PLEASE. PLEASE JUST WATCH IT . if you got a problem with first/sec episode , PLEASS CONTINUE WATCH IT . You won't regret ! I really hope you have a good time watching it !!

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SO RIDICULOUSLY HEARTFUL ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY

I LOVE FOUND FAMILY. I REALLY DO. I really don't know what I was expecting with this show, but I was blown away with how much each ep had me grinning like an idiot. There's something so nostalgic and breezy about watching these country teenage athletes really meld into a functional badminton team like ill always eat up a good sports story !! And this is so much more than that. It's slice of life and coming of age at its purest form and UGH what do you even say about this show?? It's just so warm and full of heart and it just really got to me idk. Ok yeah, some of the plots are not very interesting- esp the ones that were like the village politics- and there were some... interesting choices made in the writing but the characters and dynamic absolutely SHINE. You root so hard for these stupid boys and their weird little badminton team and it actually made me so interested in badminton? I loved watching the matches they gave me the usual 'watching sports anxiety' which is always a good thing cause it made me feel like I was actually watching a match.

But yeah, the characters really make this show. It's so chockful with characters full of personality and I adore almost all of them. Tang Junsang continues to prove that he's a force to be reckoned with acting wise and should be cast in every show ever from now on. Seriously, Yoon Haekang on paper seems like such an annoying character. He's a BASEBALL PLAYER first of all and he's an egotistical complainer who likes to keep to himself (at first, of course) but I love once we really get to know him we see that this guy just sucks at showing his emotions and has an incredible heart and its so sweet to see him warming up to his teammates and acclimate to life in the country and going back to badminton. ALSO HES JUST SO AWKWARD I LOVE HIM. And his dynamic with the rest of the team <33 Honestly thats the highlight for me. The teams dynamic with each other and ofc their dynamic with Seyoon and Hansol. Which, ohhhh the girlies in this show <33 I LOVE SEYOON. She's just as awkward as Haekang (they were literally made for each other) and just such an interesting character and her and Hansol were just adorable I loved their friendship. (Ok quick sidenote, Seyoon and Haekang were such an adorable, dorky main couple and they really highlighted just how silly teenage love is I adore them)

And the other characters were just <33 I love Yoondam, Yoochan, Yongtae, I adore all of them and their bond with each other, especially Yongtae and Yoochan their brotherly bond was literally so sweet.

And now we get to singlehandedly my absolute favorite character in the entire show and one of my top kdrama characters of all time, Jeong Insol.

Ohhhhhh, Insol. Literally what do I even say about this man. He's top of his class, his dad is like the principal or smth in the school, he has no friends, he's super annoyed by Haekang and the others, and he so badly wants to join the badminton team and be friends with them. WHAT AN AWKWARD LOSER I ADORE HIM DEARLY. Idk seeing his growth just kinda got me. Like him working so hard to be able to be on the team and him genuinely growing to love it and being apart of the team and really becoming apart of the friend group like ..... AUGH I LOVE HIM. And yeah he and Haekang have my favorite dynamic in the entire show. I love how they go from bickering with each other and being so done with each other to being besties THEY MEAN THE WORLD TO ME. Haekang standing up for him and Insol being the analytical one and doing everything to try to help Haekang strategize for matches.... THEY !!!! THEYYYYYY. Literally I could go on and on and on about this show it means the world to me and makes me feel just so AUGH <333 THE VIBES ARE SO <333

This is what happens when you put the queen herself Oh Nara in your show like !!! SHE !

And ofc, as a Prison Playbook fan all the cameos ended me like the Park Haesoo Anysong one took me out and OFC HANYANG GETTING HIS HAPPY ENDING!! I'm pretty sure every Prison Playbook fan lost their mind watching that like.... LIKE !!!!!!

Anyways this show is extremely heartfelt and such a fun watch to take you back to silly high school sports vibe with an adorable found family <33

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