Oh! Boarding House Review: Rushed and Boring

Korean series ‘Oh! Boarding House’ could’ve been a 15 minute short film and might have done a better job with its quick ‘boy meets boy’ story than it does in the 8 episode long drama. While it’s not exactly terrible, it’s nowhere close to good either.

Directed by Park Eun Joo, ‘Oh! Boarding House’ is about out of job Seol Won (Shin Yong Seok), who takes charge of a boarding house run by his mother, in return for a place to stay and earn his keep. While his mother goes off on vacation, Seol has to deal with an eclectic bunch of men living in the place, including newly arrived tenant Kim Cheol Soo (Im Sung Kyun), who due to a bizarre turn of events, ends up saving Seol’s life as soon as he arrives. To show his gratitude, Seol practically stalks Cheol Soo, and what starts off as an awkward tenant-caretaker equations, grows into something more.

The pace of the series is absolutely nuts, while the first episode takes thing slow, some plot points escalate too quickly, at a rate that’s neither funny nor entertaining. If it weren’t for the good-looking leads and some cute supporting actors (but then again, does any Korean drama NOT have gorgeous looking protagonists?), the show would’ve been quite UN-watchable. The actors actually do a pretty good job, they follow the script and display the kind of emotions expected of them, too bad the story is stupid.

It’s a 4/10 from me.