Bullet Point Review: The Best Hit
Published in
3 min readMay 22, 2018
- If you are expecting a time travel drama, with complex parallel timelines, paradoxes, time loops, and instances where the present can set right the past or completely change it, The Best Hit is not the show for you. But if you like watching friends fool around, or just enjoy watching two complete opposites fall in love, then this show is for you.
- Where The Best Hit went wrong is its promotion as a time travel drama. I went into it, expecting something of a mix of Tunnel and Reply 1997, but except for the first two, and the last two episodes, we don’t get anything related to time travel. Instead, we are treated to the lives of four young people struggling to make it big in the harsh, competitive world, with glimpses into the entertainment business, the idol trainee life, and the civil services exam preparations. But we don’t mind, or rather don’t notice much of the absence of the promised time travel theme because of Yoon Shi Yoon, who is remarkable as the dorky, insensitive, wise-cracking idol Yoon Hyun Jae from the ’90s. He steals the show and his chemistry with Lee So Young (playing Choi Woo Seung) and Cha Tae Hyun (playing Gwang Jae) is impeccable. It is an absolute delight to watch him, and I would cite him as the number one reason for someone who wants to know whether to watch the show.
- Lee So Young is also admirable as Choi Woo Seung. She must be one of the few female characters you don’t feel apologetic for in a Korean drama, and though her role is quite similar to many other female leads out there, she doesn’t get burdened with her backstory of absentee parents and turbulent childhood. There are yes, a few mentions here and there, but we never dive deep into it.
Kim Min Jae who stood out in a small yet impactful role as the king in Goblin, fails to make an impression here. He is really good at scenes involving argument, frustration, and jealousy, but he falters in just playing it…casual. He is greatly overshadowed by Yoon Shi Yoon's playful character, and his arc as the son of Hyun Jae doesn’t do much to his character or the story as well.
- Downplaying situations was one major problem I had with the show. The show spends enough time building up the tension, only to let it down completely, and take the plot in a completely in a different direction. I was all for the casual way Hyun Jae and Gwang Jae meet, with no premonition, but when it came to the big reveal — the reason between the travel through time, I was disappointed.
We keep hearing about the bank loans and the debts Gwang Jae has to pay, but when the solution does come, neither do we nor the characters feel any sense of relief, or when Young Jae decides to buy the Gwang Jae’s building, or when he steals Hyun Jae’s song or decides to tarnish MJ’s reputation, it all feels like half-hearted attempts to create tension and problems, but then the solution transpires so simply, that I felt dumb, trying to take the threats seriously. All those emotions of hurt and resentment are there, especially with Cha Tae Hyun playing them so well, but it doesn’t do justice to the reveal. - The number of cameos…uff. Cha Tae Hyun really used his star power to bring in everyone possible.
