As my title suggests, the first half had me and I was thoroughly enjoying it to the point that I convinced a moot to start watching it ongoing too. The cinematography and soundtrack were brilliant, but I loved the honesty that oozed from the ML (Park Tae Joon - Chae Jong Hyeop) with regard to his intentions and feelings for the FL (Park Tae Yang - Park Ju Hyun) and equally loved the awkward reactions she offered, however, after Ep 8 things felt a little forced and disjointed in terms of plot progression, which in my opinion, held back what the cast could have really done to knock this one out the park.

One of the biggest flaws that got to me was how much power was given to Park Jun Young (Park Ji Hyun) and her mother (Lee Ji Hyun) throughout the drama. In fact, I'm still holding my breath waiting for Park Tae Joon (Chae Jong Hyeop) to healthily release whatever he was holding onto/carrying his entire life because of their behaviour towards him and everyone around them. Practically EVERYONE in the drama enabled PJH and her mother's egos while allowing PTJ (Chae Jong Hyeop) to receive the short end of the stick around EVERY turn.

Secondly, with regards to the above, they could have easily cut down PJY (Park Ji Hyun) and her mother's drama and put more focus on the player's lives (MLs, SMLs and more of the teammates), which would have made an even better and more interesting melodrama plot line, in saying that the other alternative would have been to make the drama shorter, which in turn would have left fewer plot holes and concerns to cover.

It had many other flaws, but those were my two main concerns, which pretty much took up most of the drama. It's a pity because the last five minutes really made for a great ending, I just wished we had some more substance that was on par with it.

In saying that both, Chae Jong Hyeop and Park Ju Hyun did a great job as the leads, but for the love of badminton can someone please give Park Ji Hyun a non bitchy role sometime? I really want to like her at least once! 😅

- foxx