Match Play: Re-edited Version (2025)

Short, enjoyable watch. Watched the re-edited 6 episode version.

Sweet romance. No consent issues, boundary-crossing, or stalking/harassment.

They don’t get together until the very end of the final episode and they plan to keep it a secret. I’d be invested in a longer show where they deal with the public fall out. Also, they keep talking about Doha not getting along with his idol group members, but they never explain why and in the final episode they just say they made up with no further explanation. So not sure what the point of even including that conflict was.

Very chaste, which is probably to be expected. One lip press where one character is wide-eyed in shock (but I would consider it most likely consensual). One post-credits kiss with a tiny bit of mouth movement.

The problem was, you couldn’t convince me that these guys have any romantic feelings for each other whatsoever. They were very friend-coded in their facial expressions, body language, and tone. Doha was the one pursuing Jaeyeon, who was meant to be unsure about his feelings, but he played into that so well that even by the end I felt like he wasn’t really that into Doha. The post-credits scene where Doha tells Jaeyeon to call him and says he’s doesn’t want to be the one always calling first didn’t help with that. I think it would have been way more enjoyable if Jaeyeon was really into Doha the whole time too and there was a whole forbidden romance yearning / longing thing going on, but that wasn’t at all present.

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Damn, it’s good

First of all, I really REALLY enjoy watching this drama. It’s a shame that it felt a little short to me (there’s not much on the plot nor conflict. Everything feels shallow and surface-level), but even then I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

Character-wise, I do agree with another mydramalist reviewer who said that Jaeyeon’s character doesn’t seem to really like Doha even until the end. It did give me that energy. Maybe it’s one of those ‘he fell first and fell harder’ type thing, but I don’t know.. I feel like there’s not really a scene where you can REALLY clearly see Jaeyeon’s feelings or when he truly fell for Doha the first time. Because for me, this scene exist with Doha. You can tell the differentiation in his attitude when he realizes he likes Jaeyeon. But to be honest I didn’t realize this whole Jaeyeon thing at first and literally the whole time kicking my feet and giggling like an idiot until I saw that review.

However, even with all this, this is still by far the best drama I’ve watched this week. It really surpasses my expectations (I have none at first) even with only 6 episodes, rapid plot, and a re-edited version of the shorts drama. Slayyy. Great job

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