“Like Flowers in Sand”: A must-watch sports drama

Like Flowers in Sand is a 2024 Korean drama starring Jang Dongyoon and Lee Jumyoung. It is a coming-of-age drama about an athlete’s journey to success while reuniting with his childhood friend, who became the manager of their local team. Set in a small town, the show offers a little bit of everything – slice-of-life, romance, comedy, and even crime-solving.

Here are some of the things that might convince you to add it to your watchlist.

Wrestling

The drama focuses on the lives of people in Geosan, who have been involved in ssireum (traditional Korean wrestling) for many years.

The lead character, Kim Baekdu, is a child prodigy who used to win all matches when he was young but started to struggle in gaining achievements as he grew older.

In this drama, you will get to learn more about the sport of ssireum while witnessing Baekdu’s growth as a player and as a person, along with his teammates.

Friends-to-lovers

The main pairing, Kim Baekdu and Oh Yugyeong, are childhood friends who became distant growing up but realized their feelings for each other upon their reunion.

Baekdu is a passionate guy with golden retriever vibes. He was the first to recognize Yugyeong’s true identity and he has continued to admire her ever since they were children.

Yugyeong has a strong personality but becomes soft-at-heart especially when it comes to Baekdu. She works hard in solving cases while working as a manager for the ssireum team.

As a couple, it’s heartwarming to see them go from bickering with each other (which is also a sign of their fondness) to becoming a bit awkward because of their unexpressed feelings, and then finally developing a romantic relationship.

Life lessons

Throughout the drama, there are many lessons that are conveyed. One of the major themes is about achieving dreams and growing through your struggles. Baekdu experienced giving up but decided to give it another try and do things a bit differently. Because of that, he was able to witness the success of his hard work and perseverance.

Seeing the characters in the drama fulfill the dream jobs that they wrote as children is very inspiring and it gives hope that you can achieve anything when you set your mind to it.

Precious squad

In the drama, Baekdu and Yugyeong’s childhood friends each have interesting characters:

Kwak Jinsu (played by Lee Jaejun) is an athlete who found success in Seoul and then returned to Geosan as a coach. Cho Seokhui (played by Lee Jooseung) is a police constable, while Joo Miran (played by Kim Bora) is a mysterious café owner.

Yugyeong’s colleague, Min Hyunwook (played by Yoon Jongseok), also becomes part of their circle as they become close while working towards a common goal.

                    

As a group, their friendship is really touching to see because of their willingness to help each other. Despite circumstances that led them to grow apart, it’s evident that they still care for their friends at the end of the day.

Interesting storyline

The drama has different aspects that make it interesting. As a sports drama, it tackles not only the life of athletes but also the perspective of coaches and managers, while touching on the significant issue of match-buying. It also offers a rom-com appeal to the viewers, as well as an underlying murder mystery plot.

As the story unfolds, every episode will leave you anticipating the next one because of the excitement of the budding romance between the main characters and the thrill of finding out the criminal.

You can watch “Like Flowers in Sand” on Netflix. Check out the trailer for the series:

All images are courtesy of ENA