This is a charming coming of age tale against the backdrop of country life and high school sports.
This 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.
Racket Boys follows badminton teams from a high school in rural South Korea. There's not a lot to do in a town that's does not have sufficient population to support many forms of entertainment. It's difficult to even get wi-fi. Therefore 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 also addresses the problems of viscious hazing and other abuses that can arise in a group of uber competitive Type-A personalities.
Cross-generational relationships are also displayed in RB. The elderly couple down the road loves to host the kids to share a meal and wi-fi. In return, the kids help them with reading and operating their 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 each other over conflicting ideas on how to generate more business in town. The problem apparently is that they have matching personalities:) Neither one of them had good ideas anyway. It was 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 attack on on their country. In The West we generally don't understand much about Asian culture. This does appear that they are sincere about their complaint as it is a matter of their honor. We should accept that. However, it's highly doubtful that being offensive was the intent of the screen writer and Netflix.
Instead of giving feedback, a world wide vocal group took to their keyboards, attacking the show and Netflix as if it was intended. It spread over social media and the ever outraged went out of their way too give the show a low rating. Most K-dramas have under 3000 viewers on IMDB registering their ratings of a given show. Contrast that with Racket Boys, which had a whopping 24k ratings of "1" weeks before all the episodes were out. I actually watched it 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 who posted a review and 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 happened in EP 5 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.
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 at Gillette Stadium 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 sports 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. The Shuttlecocks, or birdies, typically fly off the racket at speeds up to 250 mph and have reached speeds 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 :) ;) :) ;)
🍅
This 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.
Racket Boys follows badminton teams from a high school in rural South Korea. There's not a lot to do in a town that's does not have sufficient population to support many forms of entertainment. It's difficult to even get wi-fi. Therefore 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 also addresses the problems of viscious hazing and other abuses that can arise in a group of uber competitive Type-A personalities.
Cross-generational relationships are also displayed in RB. The elderly couple down the road loves to host the kids to share a meal and wi-fi. In return, the kids help them with reading and operating their 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 each other over conflicting ideas on how to generate more business in town. The problem apparently is that they have matching personalities:) Neither one of them had good ideas anyway. It was 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 attack on on their country. In The West we generally don't understand much about Asian culture. This does appear that they are sincere about their complaint as it is a matter of their honor. We should accept that. However, it's highly doubtful that being offensive was the intent of the screen writer and Netflix.
Instead of giving feedback, a world wide vocal group took to their keyboards, attacking the show and Netflix as if it was intended. It spread over social media and the ever outraged went out of their way too give the show a low rating. Most K-dramas have under 3000 viewers on IMDB registering their ratings of a given show. Contrast that with Racket Boys, which had a whopping 24k ratings of "1" weeks before all the episodes were out. I actually watched it 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 who posted a review and 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 happened in EP 5 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.
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 at Gillette Stadium 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 sports 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. The Shuttlecocks, or birdies, typically fly off the racket at speeds up to 250 mph and have reached speeds 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 :) ;) :) ;)
🍅