Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Racket Boys’ On Netflix, A Korean Dramedy About A Coach And His Ragtag Teen Badminton Team

Korean series take a bit of dedication to get into; the episodes are long and the stories tend to be slow burns, especially the dramas. We haven’t seen nearly as many k-dramadies as straight k-dramas, but it seems that the comedies are like what we used to see decades ago on TVs here in the States; goofy, slapsticky jokes, lots of physical humor, and set-ups that are unlikely at best and outlandish at worst. But does that mean that they’re not worth watching? Let’s examine the case of the new Korean sports dramedy Racket Boys.

RACKET BOYS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A coach walks into a darkened gym and pretends to be serving in a big badminton match… But he’s really training a girl who criticizes his serving style.

The Gist: Yoon Hyeon-jong (Kim Sang-kyung) is struggling financially in Seoul. He gets work as a badminton coach and umpire, but he’s got so many expenses that he’s falling behind on his rent, and he takes odd jobs like moving gym equipment, just to scrape together 200,000 won (less than $200). His son, Hae-kang (Tang Joon-sang), is trying out for a prestigious baseball camp, taking first place among the teens whose parents haven’t paid the fees yet. But the second place finisher’s dad ended up paying, acing Hae-kang out of a spot.

Hyeon-jong hears about a coaching job at Haenam Seo Middle School, five hours outside the city. It pays a big salary and he gets a house to live in. At first, he scoffs at the job, but desperation takes hold and he agrees to the gig, moving Hae-kang and his young daughter Hae-in (Ahn Se-bin). Of course, the house they get is creepy and in the middle of nowhere, and everyone is so scared of the noises of nature they all sleep in the same room. Hae-kang is annoyed that he can’t play baseball and there’s no wifi.

When Hyeon-jong goes to the school, he finds that the team hasn’t entered a tournament in a few years, and their funding will be cut if they don’t improve. One of the reasons is that they’re a man down. The three members of the team are Bang Yoon-dam (Son Sang-yeon), a top player who’s addicted to social media; Na Woo-chan (Choi Hyun-wook), who is the team peacemaker; and the youngest member, Lee Yong-tae (Kim Kang-hoon). With the next tournament in a week, Hyeon-jong is determined to fill out the team so they can at least participate.

At first, he finds a Black exchange student named Jonathan (himself), who came to Korea to follow the K-pop band GFriend. Then the team loses its dormitory and they have to move in with the Yoons. Then Jonathan leaves to see GFriend in concert. So Hyeon-jong asks Hae-kang to be the fourth member of the team. When a challenge match with Yoon-dam comes down to the wire, they find out that Hae-kang was a famous badminton prodigy when he was in grade school, but disappeared from the game for unknown reasons.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Racket Boys is a part of the tradition of underdog sports movies and shows, like The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, except with badminton.

Our Take: A lot more happens in the first episode of Racket Boys than we described above. Each episode clocks in just short of 90 minutes (!), so there’s a whole lot of room to cram in characters and story, and writer Jung Bo-hoon does his level best to cram those characters in.

For instance, there’s a girl’s team at the middle school, whose coach, Ra Yeong-ja (Oh Na-ra) is nicknamed “Ranos” for her tough demeanor and by-the-book coaching style. She also happens to be Hae-kang and Hae-in’s mother. She and her two best players are also forced to move in with the Yoons and the rest of the boys’ team. There’s also Oh Mae (Cha Mi-kyung), a village “grandma” who takes care of Hae-in in a cheery daycare-center-like room in order to lure her own grandson to come visit.

So Hyeon-jong has a lot to deal with in that village, including making sure he improves the team enough to maintain the school’s funding. Racket Boys is ostensibly a comedy, but that comedy is mostly of the silly variety, like Hyeon-jong’s boss encouraging him to make favorable calls for the teams he supports, or the grandma giving Hae-kang the eye when he wants to see what’s behind the mysterious door at her house.

But there are also touching moments, like when Hae-kang realizes that neither the grandma or her husband can read, so he helps her with the remote to her TV and sets up a way she can video call her grandson. And the badminton action is pretty decent, and not stretched out as much as sports action is in shows here in the US.

We’re used to the extra-long episodes on k-dramas and k-dramedies, but it just feels like the first episode of Racket Boys could have been either slimmed down or split in two; either would have made for a more enjoyable viewing experience. Perhaps if you’re streaming the show, it’s best to watch each episode in two sittings. Either way, if you focus on the more sincere moments and less on what passes for the funny moments, you’ll enjoy the show more.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The team finds out who their next opponent will be, prompting them to dash around the gym after claiming to be exhausted after laps.

Sleeper Star: Tang Joon-sang has a lot of emotional moments as Hae-kang and he does a good job with them, for the most part.

Most Pilot-y Line: We continue to rail against this, but we hate when Korean shows telegraph their comedic moments with goofy musical cues. This show is full of those moments.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Racket Boys has a decent story, but the episodes are so long and jammed with story elements, it’s really hard to focus on the central story about the middle school badminton team.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Racket Boys On Netflix