"Love All Play" is like a hearty egg, sausage and cheese sandwich at a neighborhood diner. It doesn't take a culinary school trained chef or a Michelin star restaurant to plate a terrific one. But there are a couple of things that separate an average one from a very good one. First, there's no great sandwich without outstanding bread. It should be freshly baked. None of the spongy, preservative-stuffed, plastic-bagged tasteless kind. The eggs and cheese just have to be fine. But the sausage can't be. It should be spicy and savory with plenty of silky fats.

In "Love All Play", the fresh bread is a bevy of likable, complex and organic characters from the two leads and going deep in to the supporting roster of characters.

The spicy meat is an astonishingly strong cast that has a few recognizable faces, but no high-powered stars.

Is the plot a brilliant, novel one with twists and turns and surprises and reveals and climactic moments? No. It certainly places enough credible obstacles in the way of the happiness of the various characters to keep a modest amount of tension going, but there's nothing here that hasn't been seen dozens of times in other dramas.

Is the production value on that viewers will confuse with Bong Joon Ho? That's a very firm "No.". There's a nice theme song and the editing is fine. But the badminton scenes are nauseatingly repetitive. The wardrobe is mostly athletic warmups. In fact, there's nothing in the production design, makeup, hair, lighting, sound, photography, etc. that's noticeable.

Despite such non-noteworthiness, Chae Jong Hyeop is an unfiltered delight as Tae Joon. It's hard to think of a more warmhearted, selfless, strong and mature male protagonist. In fact, if there's a less than credible moment, it would be where Tae Yang's father has any doubts about his character. Is he too good to be true? Perhaps, but there's enough of a self-destructive, reckless element to him that Tae Joon doesn't seem inhuman.

Park Ju Hyun may not have the natural charisma that Chae Jong Hyeop exhibits, but she's a marvelous complement. Park Ji Hyun is scintillating as her Jun Young has to be very delicately layered with resentments and damages and hopes and dreams. This review could list just about every other member of the cast and try to find some unique and effusive praise for each of them. If there is a weak member, it would be In Gyo Jin as an assistant coach who comes across too erratically from one scene to the next.

Special mention, however, must be made for Choi Seung Yoon and Jo Soo Hyang. They are [chef's kiss] pure, distilled magic in virtually every moment they are together on screen. If there is a spinoff of "Love All Play", it must be featuring these two. Or give them their own new concept.

It should be a simple formula. Wonderful, multi-dimensional characters with a solid cast and simply put them in a room and let them have at it. Unfortunately, those two ingredients are trickier than they look. Props to this production for accomplishing it with aplomb here.

Recommended and highly.