Like Flowers in Sand is a K-drama founded on muscle and heart
Looking Back
Like Flowers in Sand is a series without waste. A deliberate, consoling dive into ssireum — a traditional form of South Korean wrestling, set in an unassuming Goesan town that is best described through Jang Dong-yoon's Kim Baek-doo: earnest and unrefined.
The series commences as Baek-doo's ssireum career ostensibly ends. A former childhood prodigy, the 33-year-old has failed to win a senior championship. A scion of a family of winners, in a town defined by ssireum, no one can explain the failure. Getting blackout drunk, Baek-doo vows to his coach that is he does not win his next championship, he'll retire. "What's the point of continuing something I'm horrible at?" he yells into the phone.
Sure enough, after a spirited first-round defeat in his next championship bout, he steps away. Baek-doo's poor performance, however, isn't the only mystery in Goesan. His opponent's coach is inexplicably disappointed in the result and when he is found dead in a field, Like Flowers in Sand shifts from a promising, often kinetic, sports series into an understated and complex thriller.
None of which actually matters to Baek-doo. Aimless after walking away from a sport that his defined his life, he is further rocked by the sudden return of his childhood friend, Oh Doo-sik (Lee Ju-myoung). More confounding still, she is claiming to be someone else; feigning ignorance of a Baek-doo who cannot help pronouncing loudly that he does not believe her. As the two reconnect, we begin to understand why Baek-doo has been unable to find the motivation to win and the greater mysteries that shudder beneath this failing seaside town.
The measured rhythms of ssireum make a perfect cipher for the drama that unfolds around Baek-doo and Doo-sik — careful examinations, slow circling, before sudden and brief attacks. Both the unfolding of Like Flowers in Sand's mystery and the wrestling around which its orbits are perfectly mirrored in the serene, sometimes violent, tide beside which Baek-doo and Doo-sik so often walk.
As they work to bring the secrets of Goesan's ssireum underbelly to light — albeit while shouting about it; neither making adept undercover cops — Like Flowers in Sand becomes, like the best K-dramas, a heady mix of genres. It effortlessly blends sports, police procedural, and romance without neglecting any of those strands into a captivating package that plays like South Korea's less bombastic answer to Friday Night Lights.
That it does do in so short a time is down, in large part, to its robust and inescapable sense of place. This is a lived-in town inhabited by lived-in characters; they feel like community fixtures as opposed to actors dropped into their scenes. From the gaggle of ex-ssireum wrestlers gossiping about past-glories as their wives work, to the police force stuck chasing escaped dogs while a murder investigation unfolds around them.
Baek-doo's taciturn father, former ssireum star Kim Tae-baek (Reply 1988's Choi Moo-sung), begins in the background, a looming presence echoing across Baek-doo's failures, before edging forward as he wrestles with his son's changing relationship with the sport that defines both of them. The enigmatic Joo Mi-ran (Kim Bo-ra) evolves from a minor figure, an eccentric cafe owner, into yet another strand in the web of Like Flowers in Sand's mystery.
Nothing extraneous; nothing wasted. Least of all Lee Ju-myoung — pitch perfect as a young detective keen to prove herself who cannot help but feel rattled by Baek-doo's infectuous sincerity. Yet, it's Jang who shines brightest; utterly convincing as both a weary lost soul and as an intense sportsman. Both make for a relatable pair, approaching their mid-thirties, caught between potential and settlement, with a chemistry that feels far more real than most K-dramas can provide.
Like Flowers in Sand is not immune to K-drama cliche, however. It is, in part, a romance after all — though, released in 2023, it has missed whatever malaise has infected K-dramas in 2025 and heading into 2026. Undecorated, more interested in people and place than rich heirs and unbelievable romance, it hides its more formulaic elements beneath a strong facade of humanity that is increasingly rare in television; South Korean or otherwise.
But with an exquisite script, beautifully shot with Kim Jin-woo's camera lingering on moments just long enough for them to sink in, and with each of its pieces working in perfect harmony — be it visceral ssireum, shades of a riveting thriller, or its inquiry of dreams unrealised — Like Flowers in Sand never feels sluggish. Rather, it's careful; guiding you through a fully-realised world propelled by a quiet energy that lingers beneath each scene. A muscular saga with plenty of heart.