Dramas like
Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo

The same friendship, three years older and much poorer. Two people who have known each other since childhood, a martial arts career going nowhere, and a show that is unusually good at the part after they get together rather than before. Same refusal to invent conflict out of jealousy, same warmth toward people who are not winning at anything. Difference: it stays interested in the ambition all the way to the end, where Bok-joo's sport slides out of focus in the back half.

Hooks early Episode 1. The friendship is fully established in the first twenty minutes.

Youth sport shot with the same affection, and a great deal less mercy. Fencing instead of weightlifting, 1998 instead of 2016, and Nam Joo Hyuk again as the boy standing slightly off to the side. The first-love writing is as specific as anything here and the friendship between the two girls is better than the romance. Difference: it is a melodrama underneath, and it asks for more than this one ever does.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the two of them start meeting at night. Episode 1 is loud and abrasive on purpose, and it is the easiest place to quit.

The healthy-relationship show, for adults. A sprinter and a translator who solve their problems by saying what they mean, plus a second couple at least as good as the first. If what you liked was two people being direct with each other instead of suffering decoratively, this is that show, undiluted. Difference: the sport is background from episode one, and the register is quiet rather than goofy.

Slow start Episode 3, once all four leads stop explaining themselves and start talking.

Keep the sport, drop the romance. A rural badminton team and the village around it, built on training, small victories and parents rebuilding after failure. It has the exact comfort level here and it is the one show that never loses interest in the athletics. Difference: the leads are middle schoolers and the love story is a background hum, so the romance you came for is barely present.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the village and the badminton team are both set up.

Same director, calmer heart rate. Nam Sung Woo shooting another show about people negotiating a relationship out loud, this time as a contract between a housemate and a landlord. Both are built on the idea that a couple talking honestly is more interesting than a couple being kept apart. Difference: it is a show about adults with money problems and no sport anywhere, and its comedy is dry where this is broad.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the housemate arrangement starts.

The same writer, twenty years further into life. Yang Hee Seung again, writing an age-gap romance between a cram school star and a woman running a side-dish shop, and playing it as two adults rather than two blushing teenagers. Same instinct for a supporting cast you actually like. Difference: there is a real thriller running underneath it, so the tonal floor drops in a way nothing here does.

Slow start Episode 3, once the side-dish shop and the cram school collide properly.