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Relatable and heartfelt
It took me a little while to get into this and I liked the younger timeline a lot better than the older adult one, where there was a lot more annoying slapstick humor. It just felt more comforting and the family theme was really strong.But the adult timeline really grew on me as the drama went on, and in the end, it was that one that hit the hardest. It was just a really beautiful depiction of family life in Tainan, and the bits of political and historical context that it included were also really raw and realistic.
I also have to especially give props to the lead actresses — both the adult and the younger versions did an amazing job of bringing the character to life and making it feel cohesive and natural. And the relationship between the siblings was actually one of my favorite parts in this show. Would highly recommend this.
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Amazing Chemistry
The best part of this drama is, without question, the chemistry between the two leads. From the very start they had the best kind of relationship — playful bickering, but with the added fact that they were two people who each had their own trauma, who had somehow found each other and the emotional support they hadn't been able to get anywhere else. There was something so beautiful and heart-breaking about every scene with the two of them just being together, something so intimate about the conversations they had whether or not there was any skinship (which we did get, satisfyingly).Other than that, the second and side ships were also fun to watch and had their unique dynamics that added to the story. Even as independent characters, I really liked all the side characters.
The main plot of this drama surrounds Taeyang's past catching up with her, and this really takes center stage in the second half of the show. It was a decent plotline, but I definitely wish that it was resolved sooner because as much as I loved the angst we got between the leads because of it (those super emotionally packed scenes were where I cried BUCKETS), but I felt like the badminton part of the drama started to taper off — there was less about the risks that athletes take and their motivations and goals, but it was more about forgiveness and guilt. I have nothing against this drama veering into melodrama territory but I definitely think it lasted a little too long and we barely got to see any badminton matches, whereas the first half was a lot about the characters training and trying to improve.
With that being said, the ending did feel a little rushed too. I disagree with some of the main themes that the plot ended up seeming to say and wish our two leads had been given more agency; it felt like some plot development either happened out of convenience or they were waiting for other characters to change so that they could make decisions. While I understand that our main leads are simply two very selfless and patient (perhaps to a fault) characters and that Asian culture is very family-centered, if you're more confrontational and about self-interest/self-love (as I am) you might find it frustrating and plot-convenient.
Overall, still a really fun watch for me. Taejun is hands down the best male lead I've watched this year and will go down as one of my permanent favorites. This entire drama is just full of green flag male leads.
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Nice aesthetics, lacking story
I really liked how this movie vibed in general, from the cinematography to the overall quiet of certain scenes. For what it's worth, the actresses filled their roles well and had some nice scenes together.With that being said, however, I just didn't like the characters themselves — this movie was by no means character driven; there's little to no character development and I felt like the toxicity in the relationship wasn't explored much either.
Ultimately, however, I also just felt like the story in this was lacking; it didn't feel like a story about running or dying — I didn't feel any sense of urgency or even any sort of direction. The time jumps back to the past felt like they didn't have much of a purpose either.
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Large Cast of Characters
There are so many characters in this show and that could either be positive or negative. The Reply series did it well but here, for me, there were so many characters that I didn't care about, like the side characters of the Senior Writer or even the two main leads. With that being said, this isn't that much of a character-driven drama, but those characters who did have personal growth turned out to be my favorites (Eunjung, Somin).There's sort of a drop-off with the plot as well and some lost opportunities for exploring but this show packs its punches in many of the right places, especially in the beginning where everyone is being introduced.
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Super fun
I haven't laughed this hard at a drama in a long time — and it came at such the right time because I was getting so sick of slapstick humor. All the characters (the main leaders, and especially Zi Rui) had the most amazing comedic timing.This has my favorite type of female lead — you don't have to be the best at everything and physical fighting to be smart and make good decisions, and of course, it has my favorite type of male lead that's lowkey a badass but goes soft for her.
The chemistry between the main leads was so good and I just love the relationship that the two of them had together. The sidekicks were hilarious as well and worked so well with our main characters and with each other. And it really felt like all the characters had their own personalities no matter how small their roles were.
I do think I enjoyed the first half a little better when it was our main character trying to navigate the new world and all the subplots that were going awry. I felt like some of the magic was lost a little near the end (especially after the goddamn noble idiocy!) because it was reduced to the main plot around government control. It also seemed to reduce a lot of characters to their cliches, and I had loved that they subverted the tropes in the beginning.
Nevertheless, I really like how this show's plot turned to a darker tone without ever really losing its style of humor. Sadly I can't really say if it surprised me — I'm still mad at myself for obsessively watching clips on YouTube before I decided to binge it in a day — because I knew the scenes already. But overall the plot is still really clever.
Overall, I still had a really fun time watching this — I cannot wait for season 2 even though I have to wait an entire year!
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There was also a lot of humor at the start, which I appreciated even though it wasn't my type of comedy and because I felt like the FL was acting so ditzy when she was supposed to be the more mature one. Even as someone who's not a huge fan of age gap romances, I really missed the power dynamic in that I liked how the teacher was in a position of power at school. I'm also a sucker for the school setting and kind of liked that part of the drama the best.
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Loved the second ship, hated the mains
The second ship really saved this for me. From the start I knew I would love them so much better — the playful, teasing relationship that they had is my favorite type of ship. And I really watched the drama for them, even though the plot went OFF THE RAILS for them. The second female lead had the personality that I loved — outgoing, bubbly, straightforward with her feelings.I also had really terrible SLS for this drama honestly, I felt like second lead had so much more character and backstory to him, whereas you barely knew anything about the main lead and the development with the FL was absent as well. My stars are also for second lead, who I feel like got the short end of the stick, as second leads in cdramas often do.
With that being said, I basically could not stand either main lead.
The guy was unlikable. I'm just not a fan of cheaters and he did it multiple times, and always seemed to blame it on the other person.
The female lead was the worst part. The acting for the female lead was not only bad, I think it was simply a terrible character who couldn't hold a conversation for more than two minutes, NEVER learned to stand up for herself or be herself for that matter, and also maintained the same facial expression throughout all 16 episodes. I couldn't, for the life of me, see what was so interesting about her, and as the drama went on it felt like she only got worse — more dependent on her partner, more selfish in what she asked of him, and more delusional in the idea that nobody should change and that she was for some reason owed a relationship.
In fact, the entire drama seemed to put such an emphasis on "how dare you change?" for each character. They fought over promises they made years ago that don't make sense to keep considering the obstacles that life threw in their way, and it was like only the second ship managed to learn how to navigate new situations.
Ultimately though, the pacing was done pretty well with their coming of age being evenly spread out; I'm obviously a larger fan of the high school days, before things haywire, but I'm super glad the second lead got their ending.
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To be honest, though, I might have enjoyed the first half better than the second, mainly because of one huge plot twist that broke my heart and never really got resolved the way I wanted it to. Still, it was hard to stop watching.
Soo Bong was probably my favorite character. Though he was so minor, the character development was there, and he was ALWAYS relatable.
Last thing: I swear this drama has like the longest and slowest car rides ever?? ESPECIALLY when the characters are in a rush...
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The kidnapping sub-plot was also super intriguing, and I was really invested in how the characters would deal with it. It scared me but also ended up creating a really good balance between light, fluffy scenes and darker moments.
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The main ship is starting to get a little on my nerves because of how wishy-washy they were being, and I actually liked the new character better. Other than that, I still had quite a good time watching this, and the fact that the episodes are short and updated frequently makes it easy to get addicted.
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Fun but unsubstantive
There was something quite charming and enjoyable about this drama, crazy visual effects and all — it's the kind of show you can watch without using any part of your brain. Once you did, however, you find that there's a lot lacking especially when it comes to plot and substance.As much as it pains me to say this, the humor is almost on par with that of Melting Me Softly — it's loud, obnoxious, and zany, and most of the time it misses the spot. A few characters seemed to exist just for the laughs, but they really just ended up annoying and one-dimensional and seemed to serve no purpose. The worst culprit was DH's sister.
There are a lot of things that definitely made me uncomfortable, especially how race was handled. I understand that the people behind the drama said the webtoon artist was supposed to represent how people can come together around love for a culture, but his personality had not much to it other than being dirty and liking to draw x-rated cartoons. It also just felt incoherent at times, especially if it was used for humor which, as I previously mentioned, often fell flat.
I'm a fan of any romance that shows people slowly falling in love with one another in everyday situations, but I really just didn't FEEL it in Backstreet Rookie — honestly, I much preferred the dongsaeng-style relationship that SB and DH had, for multiple reasons. They dragged on the ex-girlfriend plot for far too long, and they also added in a "childhood" connection that made any sort of romantic plot seem even weirder with the age gap.
I also didn't like SB's sister, Eun-byul, who I felt like made so many bad decisions and never owned up to them, instead having SB run after her apologizing. I felt like I just really wanted more substantive conversation between the characters.
With all that being said, one thing that I did love about this drama was the theme of family (which may be why I preferred DH and SB being that). SB and DH's mother had the most heart-warming scenes together and the most touching conversations, and it was definitely something I wanted to see more of.
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A lesser adaptation, but great at doing its own thing
If you were comparing this to the original, this does some things better and some things worse.What this one did do better than the original I think, was setting up the romance much earlier. It's there in the original but so subtle I think a lot of people had trouble adjusting to it (not me though, I loved it lol). Here, they make the relationship much more obvious from the beginning, and while I wish we had the longer screentime for their development, I liked the clarity of it. The little bout of the SML "liking" the FL is also removed, which I thought was a relief, as it both gave the second relationship more time to develop, but also strengthened the main relationship by setting the FL's relationship with the two MLs apart.
The shorter runtime means they cut out a lot of slice-of-life moments that really brought the friendships and familial relationships to life. The third friends, while technically unnecessary, really rounded out the group and show's commentary on motherhood. A few things feel just a bit watered down, like the ML going to Seoul instead of actually abroad, or the SML's childhood backstory of almost having to give up school and work in the fields, leading to the FL's father taking him in.
Now, all comparisons aside, I think this drama was pretty great! The pacing and time jump feel natural, and it's really good at giving all the leads equal weight with their emotional stories. The family is by far the best part of the story, especially the dad; there are lot of scenes that will tug at your heartstrings, and the conclusion is sweet and satisfying.
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This review may contain spoilers
Less "second-chance romance" and more about "closure"
I really liked the slow and quiet vibes of this drama, but it does it so much at the cost of stagnating the plot, and I think I ended up being really confused.The first few episodes were really great; I think the leads have great chemistry and were really cute in the high school scenes. They were both quiet characters but had distinct personalities, so it was nice to see two little introverts fall in love. I also just liked that none of their family situations were spelled out for us — we learned about them, slowly, through dialogue.
After the leads met again, I still really liked their chemistry. They both did yearning really well, and once again, the quiet vibes really let us just wallow in their lingering feelings.
As the episodes went on, I STILL really liked the quietness, but it became pretty obvious that the plot was missing movement, and the vagueness started working against the drama's favor — it became really confusing what events had happened in the past for the leads to get to this point, and when they were fighting or upset I wasn't really sure why.
I'd gone into this one thinking it was going to be a second-chance romance, and I kept thinking that once they promised that they would try to be more accommodating and not let distance and timing be an obstacle. But then, in the last two episodes, the leads barely have ANY screentime together, and it became pretty obvious the show was going, instead, for the lesson "sometimes people just can't be together even if they love each other, but it's important to end things warmly."
So, spoilers for those who haven't seen this yet: it's NOT a happy ending. I don't mind this, honestly, but I think the show took far too long to decide what it was trying to do.
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So cute!
I'm a sucker for noona romances and this one really hit the spot. The ML is stubborn but passionate while the FL is practical and strong-willed — they're very golden retriever bf and black cat gf which is one of my favorite dynamics. And the chemistry between them is so good, whether it's skinship or them just sitting on the sofa and talking about dreams and goals.I do wish we got a little more about the FL on this point — she's a coach so the show follows the ML's dreams more and we don't really see if she has any further career goals other than finishing the postgrad program she's already a part of. On the ML's development, I also think the show kind of drops the ball in the final act. We just needed to spend time on one more important competition where the ML could face rivals that the show had been building up, instead of the overseas arc we got.
Regardless, I thought this was such a fun watch and the leads made me giggle and kick my feet. I might need another noona romance to fill the void.
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Well-written but slow
It's objectively well-written but I'm not sure if I really connected to the characters on an emotional level.The pilot episode is fantastic and the overarching plot is really interesting, and it's supported by characters that are very layered. The show is supported by extremely strong performances — especially Lee Seung-gi's.
While I think the premise is interesting, the pacing did feel a little slow at times. There are some good twists, but the big whodunnit seems pretty obvious from the start, and we're just waiting to get there. I'm not sure if the show needed to be stretched into 20 episodes. Perhaps it would've worked better as a weekly watch, but there wasn't quite the "race against time" tension that I wanted.
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