Rocket Boy Squad (2021)

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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Realistic kdrama portraying teen athletes

I want to note that Racket Boys is the first kdrama I watched while it was airing. This means I had to deal with waiting for new episodes to come out instead of just clicking next. Why is this important? I feel like many dramas are good for binging but not enough for waiting for new episodes to come out. Racket Boys definitely survived the test of me wanting to know what happened even though they made me wait two weeks for the final episode.

First off, I like how this drama focused not only on teen athletes but also on the people around them. We get the backstory of Haekang's parents which I think was interesting and definitely contributed to the character development of the parents. Yes, you heard that right, even the parents have a solid character development even though the show is teen-focused. Some people might not have liked the extra storylines involving the villagers (I originally did not), but I started fall in love with each of the villagers featured from the city couple to Big Grandma from Busan (lol I really love how she had a lasting impact if you know what I mean ;P).

Onto the teens! I thoroughly enjoyed the acting displayed by the actual teen actors! Yes, you heard that right! The teenage characters are actually portrayed by actual teens! A lot of them have been featured in works before inclusing Tang Jungsun (who I loved both in CLOY and Move to Heaven). Although later on, the writers decided to focus on the romance between the teens, I think each of them have solid character development, even the class president lol. He turned out to be one of my favorite characters. I really liked how they brought cameos into the show to show the teens interacting with other adults (aka badminton players) and didn't have them just interacting with their parents.

For the episodes themselves, I felt like they were always laggy in the middle, but they made up for it on a lot of cliffhanger endings. I'm the kind of person not to watch previews, but in this case, I always watched them several times to figure out what could happen in the next episode. I also really enjoyed watching all of the badminton scenes 10/10 for cinematography there.

While I would not say this is the best kdrama I watched, it was definitely different and intriguing enough for me to enjoyably remember even after it ended.

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Please don't stop reading this at my negative points. I have a lot of positive things to say about this drama as well.

Negative:
At first, I didn't really get into this drama that much. I decided to watch it because I like Sports/Teen dramas, and it looked good. I'll be honest, I have a few issues with the filmmaking.

Issue #1:
They often don't show the ending of a badminton match. It'll show the middle of the match and right at the height of the game when tension is high, they'll cut away to a later scene where the characters will verbally mention who won. I don't get why they don't show the ending of it so that you can watch a character win for yourself. It's super tacky in my opinion to just tell who the winner is without showing it. It's very unsatisfying and doesn't make sense from a filmmaking perspective at all. (After Episode 8-9 this issue resolves and they show you the ends of all the rest of the matches)

Issue #2:
Sometimes they would introduce a small plotline and resolve it almost immediately without developing it or using it as something to really push the main plot forward. I think there are a lot of scattered storylines and conflicts in this drama and sometimes it kind of interrupts the flow of the main story. In my opinion all conflicts should add to the overarching plot, but they failed to do this well often and sometimes this caused dragged out or boring scenes.

Positive:
(I loved this drama after I got over my initial issues)

#1: Great character relationships
There is a really strong joy that I took from watching the boys in the team develop their friendship. It's truly heartwarming and meaningful, and the drama does an excellent job of portraying very realistic and wholesome teenage relationships, both platonic and romantic. I liked it because it wasn't cringey or overly sappy, but it still felt very meaningful in a purposeful way. You really start rooting for the boys and their friendship.

#2: A Good Balance:
Often Sports dramas struggle with giving their characters a realistic amount of wins and loses. The leads of these dramas tend to always win, and on the rare occasion that they do lose, it's something that they really struggle to overcome. I found that in this drama, you felt the frustration of the characters when they lost (which they did a lot at first), and that made all their wins (both in badminton and regular life) feel very powerful and satisfying. It was easy to root for them and cheer them on, and I appreciated the fact that they supported each other even when they lost.

#3: Amazing Acting:
I really appreciated the actors, especially Tang Jun-sang. They did an excellent job of portraying their roles, and I became very attached to each character. Tang Jun-sang does a beautiful job of portraying Yoon Hae-kang in a way that makes you really love the character.

I felt very satisfied when the drama ended, and I plan to watch it again one day in the future.

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A sports slice of life that hits just right

Are you a fan of Hospital Playlist and the Reply series? Do you like Slice of Life shows with varied pacing, cute side stories of its side characters and multiple couples? Then this show is for you. I also call any Haikyuu fans who love the sports storyline of "from nothing to something again".

I loved watching each episode of this show. The characters were loveable, the timeline and pacing was chill and you didn't necessarily have to keep clicking to the next. But whenever I would watch the next, it would be a fun experience. I didn't realise this might be a sub-genre of kdrama that I might be into so I'll be sure to check similar plotlines in the future.

I personally am not the biggest fan of youngster couples - personal pref, but things were cutely done. Don't come into this expecting the usual romance developments though. Come for the general family, soft vibes.

A 9/10 from me :)

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A feel good drama

It's a slice of life, feel good, sports comedy that captures people's sentiments. I won't say anyone can watch this since slice of life is a genre that even i don't usually watch. But this drama is like a good dessert.
You can binge watch this or can even watch an episode a week without that anxious feeling of what comes next.
Its a sweet comedy that is also a platter of numerous moral values too. One feels the rush and anticipation of the badminton matches as well as serenity of the village scenery.
My rewatch values are always low because im the kinda person who cannot watch a drama or movie more than once. And even then i gave this 6 considering.

Also its a treat for Prison Playbook fans (≧∇≦)/

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A feel good slice of life masked as a sports drama (at least so far)

EDIT/REVISED

So much potential in this one has been relegated to a cliche drama.

Like mentioned before, this drama is less of a sports drama than it is just a slice of life drama. And that is what made it great for the first couple of episodes, however, the moment it started to get serious about the sports aspect, it has completely fallen off the rails.

That's because it practically tells us nothing about the sport of badmington, except that some players are
good" and that some players are bad. Unless it fixes itself soon, I'm afraid I'm going to have to drop this.

___

Previous review 4 episodes watched

Racket Boys has so far been nothing short of amazing.

It tells the story of a student who loves baseball and is their top player at his school, who due to having a poor family and other factors, can not continue to play the sport he loves to play. The family moves to a country side school when the father is asked to coach their badminton team. The story follows the family and the badminton team.

By reading the synopsis, you may not think that there is anything particularly new, or innovative. Low class kid enters a badminton team and probably goes on to love and win in a heart felt sports drama right?

But the way the drama fleshes out each character introduced, the way the drama tells engaging stories that shines a light onto hidden emotions behind the rough exterior that the characters' have built up over time. It all just feels so... human.

And its all expertly done by a great balance between humour and emotion.

Don't get me wrong, its not perfect. It still has a few corny sports moments, but because they are so few and far between, and because it is not the focus of the show, I still find it a perfect example of how a drama like this should be executed. Every moment of the show just feels like it has purpose.

Give this one a try, you will not be disappointed.

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RACIST

Not so long ago the United States was racist towards Asians, especially towards those with fair skin and slanted eyes and it was very painful.
But in Asia itself, namely Korea with SBS as a pioneer, doing the same thing to other Asian countries, namely Indonesia.
Indonesia is not a perfect country, and maybe the world only knows Jakarta and Bali, Indonesia does not have an entertainment industry like global Korea, but it is still a country with a population of more than 250 million people, and many Korean entertainment lovers from there.
If Koreans can get angry with something that demeans them, how much more other countries.
This is not true, this is racist and vilifies Indonesia, even though this is just a drama, it still creates outside opinions that judge Indonesia as very bad in every way.
Korean entertainment has gone global and that is enough to make Indonesia's reputation very bad in the eyes of other countries!
Imagine if your country was also insulted?
I admit that Korea is the fastest country to become a developed country in every way, but they have no right to look down on other countries!!

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Make a country looks bad.

I haven't write any reviews on MDL and English is not my first language, so please kindly ignore the grammar error. The story is good and worth to watch at first. I was excited too bcs it says it will bring Indonesia country which is well-known in Badminton world. Whoever, when the preview episode 5 aired, my expectations dropped. It's a fiction but still doesn't sit right with me. They make Indonesia looks bad. In reality, the Korean athletes got tons of fans in Indonesia. I would give the overall rating 8.0 if they didn't do that thing tbh, but nah. I dropped it right away.

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surprisingly i loved it

i think you should give this drama a chance, i personally really enjoyed this drama as it has comedy and touches upon the importance of family and friendship.
to me i felt a sense of joy and suspense every time i finished an episode
although most comments give a negative light about racism as a black person myself i grew to enjoy it (even if i didn't agree about the racist parts)

especially the actors expressed their roles exceptionally well, especially the kid actors i really felt like i was there with them in every scene

especially because BTS was vaguely mentioned which i found enjoyable and comedic and each scene was fun to watch, it really felt like a feel good drama

romance was such a lovely add on in this drama even tho it was mostly related to friendship and sports

however some parts were not the best like how i mentioned before the slight racism and sexism which i wish the director could have changed.

nevertheless i hope there is a season 2

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