Both of the dramas tried to carry out a very similar concept or story line. Which one succeeded in my opinion? Mr. Baek succeeded where The Best Hit did not.
Mr. Baek:
A grumpy old guy who almost dies and then becomes young and poses as a half-brother to his estranged son. His son basically figures out the guy is his father and they make up as father and son. Eventually, the old man right now young falls in love and gets together with the girl his son liked. After a certain number of days pass, the man disappears and a year later shows up still young looking with no memory of the past. His son claims him as his half-brother and the man falls in love with the girl again, the end.
The Best Hit:
A young singer time travels to the future and meets his future son who is currently the same age as him. He becomes friends with his son and falls in love with his son's love interest. The girl likes the father instead of the son and they get together. The son does realize that this is his father, but he never truly accepts him as his father, since his father left the family before he was born, and he is mad at him. Then the father realizes he must go back to past so that his son can be born. With this in mind he goes back but it is a year later and he finds a version of himself in that year, who already became the father of his child. That version of himself is dying from a disease. The young singer father travels back to the future and gets together with the girl.
Both shows about a father and his son being around the same age and getting to know each other as friends or co workers. Both shows have the son become a second lead to the girl he likes because his father likes the same girl, and both shows the son gives up for the sake of his father.
What Mr. Baek did better:
This drama is fueled by bromance and was the real reason why I continued to watch. The father-son moments are cute and adorable and the Father's redemption and friendship with his son is one of the things which this drama focused on and I love it a lot. They are able to understand why their audience is watching and keep that coming in the drama.The father and son needed to grow their relationship and learn how to best understand each other. In this drama, they learned how get along and the son grew up.
What was the problem with The Best Hit:
The real problem with this drama is how they wanted to make the cake and also eat it. Yeah, his father was from the past, but he was also not his father because he had not gotten together with the mother in the past yet. His mother may have loved his father at some point but then 20 years down the road when this story took place she has moved on to a different guy, and no one knows that the father died, instead they just think he abandoned them. Which is of course why his son and other people are mad at the father for years for nothing. His father who went to the future never had to get together with the mother because himself from different year did that, and so he got together with the childhood friend of his son. By creating two fathers in the past, one from 1993 and the other from 1994 they essentially made them two different people and thus got to do whatever they wanted with either of them. It would have been better for him to have to go and fall for the mother in the past and have his son. But, instead they created this father story but also created a romance and did not mess up the original story line. It was a big let down. They thought people were watching for the romance instead of the bromance and thus, their focus was wrong. They had boring subplots and I did not care about the characters as I did in Mr. Baek. Mr. Baek made me care, the Best Hit did not.
Rating of Mr. Baek: 8.5
Rating of The Best Hit: 6.5
So, if you wish to see a drama be about a father and son who were estranged or very distant become friends, Mr. Baek is the best choice out of the two.
As a side note:
Lee Joon from My Father is Strange is in Mr. Baek.
