Boarding House Number 24 (aka Boarding House on 24th Street) is a 12 episode KTV drama from mid-late 2014. It is a fairly standard tale about young adults living together, becoming friends, bickering, growing up, falling in and out of love, etc... It's unbelievably silly and immature on several levels however.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Story: A former playboy in his youth has just learned that he fathered a child 24 years ago. He wants to meet his child, but first must figure out which of 6 possible candidates is actually his offspring. So, he invites/tricks all 6 of these people to stay at his boarding house until he can figure out which of them is his son or daughter. The six consist of 3 single handsome dudes and 3 single pretty girls. Thus, you can expect hi-jinks and relationships to ensue between them until we find out who the child is.
I'm not gonna sugar coat it: this show absolutely STUNK to start with, but it does improve some over time. The first of the problems is the story itself, specifically, why don't these people just take a DNA test to learn who the child is? There's some half-assed excuse as to why this can't be done, but the real answer is there would be no reason for this ridiculous show premise to exist at all if they didn't completely sweep that simple solution under the rug. This show is also very cheaply made, the six young stars are mostly all random K-Pop idols thrown together and told to "act well with each other immediately", and the comedy primarily consists of bathroom humor, kicks to the crotch, and slipping on banana peel jokes. Some of the humor on this show is so bad that the PD's decided to tack on an audience laugh track during editing (in an apparent attempt to let you know these jokes are supposed to be funny), and, as a result, this show plays more along the lines of a inane American sitcom than it does a typical K-drama. It's reminiscent of something along the lines of 'The Brady Bunch' or 'Friends' (complete with simple misunderstandings, life lessons, canned laughter, and the like).
The show gets better once everyone realizes they should just let it be exactly what it is (i.e. absurd, goofy, nonsense). The humor improves too as the cast & crew become more relaxed and familiar with each other; the comedy rarely approaches anything that can be considered biting or witty or high-brow, but the laughs are more numerous beginning around episode 4-5 or so.
The story places all of its focus on the house owner and the seven twenty year olds (consisting of the six potential children plus the niece of the house owner). There aren't really any recurring auxiliary or secondary characters to speak of, and antagonists here are basically nonexistent. Most of the characters on this show share a fairly equal amount screen time, although I suppose the house owner (played by veteran character actor Kim Kwang Kyu) gets the most. The rest of the cast is made up of an assortment of various KPop idols with differing amounts of acting experience.
All of the young cast members do OK enough acting wise (some better than others), but these aren't very nuanced or textured roles; they're all primarily tasked with just fooling around most of the time. Of them all, Min Do Hee (in her role as the shy shut in that comes out of her shell with the help of her housemates) does have a bit more focus on her compared to the others. Min Do-Hee is freakin' adorable, and she's not half bad as a young idol crossover actress based on the two shows I've seen her in thus far. The rest of them are all pretty/handsome young idol stars as well, and while their characters can be annoying on occasion, it's hard to dislike these or any other young idol themselves; they all work hard, they're endlessly polite, and they all manage to never act like arrogant jackasses in public. As a side note, the idols use their own names for the characters they play on this show, which is quite helpful in familiarizing yourself with various young idols that you might not know all that well yet.
One of the most amusing things about this show is when some of the cast members inadvertently start laughing &/or flubbing their lines during shooting. This happens several times, but the PD's decided some of these scenes were good enough to air anyway; at first blush, this almost appears to be a brilliant and innovative idea to slyly imbed comedic bloopers & outtakes into the story & show itself. But, it quickly becomes clear that the PD's were rather just thinking: "Screw it. That take was good enough. Let's move on to the next scene!" This was hilarious!
As for who the house owner's child is: who cares?...this is essentially irrelevant, and I knew who it was going to be in the very first episode anyway. This show is much more about watching young people find their way into adulthood while forming love lines and getting involved in various frivolous circumstances along the way.
Summary: No way I can recommend this show. It's brazenly lazy, extremely low budget, frequently stupid, & very childish. It rarely ever attempts to even be a semi-competent production, and, it's severely lacking in any depth or intelligence. Nevertheless, I'm almost ashamed to admit that I did kinda like it a little when all was said and done, and there were several episodes throughout that I did end up enjoying. If you're looking for a well written, epic, or even halfway decent K-Drama, you'll need to look elsewhere, but if you want to watch a bunch of young attractive K-Pop idols (plus one old dude) basically goof off for the better part of 10 hours, then have at it!
Bottom Line: 6 out of 10 stars!
