Love Alarm (2019)

An interesting concept that fails to translate into an experience worth watching

I really wanted to like this drama. The concept surrounding the love alarm was intriguing, and there were so many cool things that they could've done with it. Unfortunately, very little is explored with this.

In addition to the love alarm theme not being used to its full potential, I disliked the acting/writing. The main character just seems to exist, it was difficult to tell how she was feeling, and she doesn't speak often. Not to mention the unbelievable scenarios that happened throughout the drama, starting with following a complete stranger to a secluded area and being kissed by him.

They touch on homosexuality for about two minutes, and it had me thinking that they would continue this plot-line into something more substantial for the show; however, it just... disappeared. I thought that was quite unfortunate. Overall, this drama has an interesting concept but failed to execute it in an entertaining and engaging way.

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I was really interested when I saw its trailer for the first time, but then didn't watch the series as soon as it came out. But once I started I binge watched all episodes in one day, staying up until 6 am just to finish them! And now I'm already rewatching it because this drama is beautiful in every aspect in my opinion. It has this kind of duality, it has many fluff romance scenerios, yet it's very dramatic and twisted sometimes.

I don't understand why do people really hate Sun-oh's character though. I liked him, and I'm rooting for him and Jojo. I don't think he is a bad guy because he fell for Jojo, he didn't want to fall for her in the first place but couldn't stop himself because she was different than the others girls. But their love was beautiful and very charming, you could see that they really loved each other. It's maybe because I love strong male leads, but I had no problem with him at all - but on the other hand I didn't like Hye-yeong's character. He was just too silent in my opinion, if you don't like it then you have to say it or the other person won't really understand your problem - best friends should talk about their problems openly with each other.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure we're going to get a second season (I'm having the same vibes as I did when they finished My First First Love in the middle of the story), so I'm really hoping they are going to drop it in a few months! I can't stop thinking about this series :)

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I'm confused

What the heck was that?

EP 1 and they already made out in an alleyway?????? when they LITERALLY don't know each other?????? and they don't give us ANY explanation as to why JJ followed Sun Oh.

Not just that but before the kiss, he knows that his childhood BFF fancies JJ. So why? how did Sun Oh fall for JJ when they only stole glances a couple of fucking times. Did Sun Oh just one night decided to be a dick and steal JJ from Hye Yeong? What the hell is this storyline. I thought it was going to get better and get explanations later in the next few eps but noooooo it just gets worse. JJ suddenly turns cold and breaks up with Sun Oh to protect him and all that crap when REALLY she was just being inconsiderate of his feelings. Things could've been solved way easier and faster if they had just sat down and talked it out. This drama is far from being realistic.

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Missed Potential and Bad Writing

Story - This drama's concept is so intriguing and could have left an impact if it wasn't for the direction they took it. The idea of an app being used to confess feelings and out LGBT+ people is far more interesting and impactful than the boring 3-way relationship they tried to push to viewers. Kim JoJo and Hwang Sun Oh have almost no chemistry and it often made me question why they were even interested in each other to begin with. Kim JoJo and Lee Hye Yeong had even less chemistry, so his jealousy held no merit. However, if you were to look at this in the perspective of an LGBT+ person, Hwang Sun Oh and Lee Hye Yeong had all the makings to turn this into a coming of age/feel good bl drama. The jealousy and almost possessiveness within their relationship dynamic made it hard to not take note of possible homosexual undertones and could only serve as a reminder of the plot that could have been. The heterosexual lens of the series is ultimately what made this story a miss for me.

Acting/Cast - Song Kang did his best to play his part with what he was given, and since the character was bland, the acting came off as bland. The character had no dimension and was only portrayed as a bratty high school boy who "must get the girl", so the acting seemed to follow. I feel that if Song Kang wasn't so restrained within his boring one dimensional character, we'd be able to appreciate not only the character but the actor a bit more. I seemed to also feel the same energy from Kim So Hyun, but worse. I've seen her in other works and know that she can do better to bring her character to life, but somehow it felt like she just could not get into Kim JoJo's mind enough to portray her as she was at least written. Its a bit hard to blame So Hyun though, i'm convinced it was the lackluster writing of the characters to blame. Now I haven't seen Jung Ga Ram's acting before watching this drama, so I cant say whether he did just as good or bad as any other works. But I personally felt that he did the best within this series. His character is a guilable and kind high schooler who is often misunderstood as the "side kick" to his more popular friend, and he did an absolutely stellar job in that role. He made me feel sorry for his character even though his character was written as someone too bland to really feel sorry for. Maybe it was his great face, but it worked off really well in his favor in this piece and I really look forward to whatever else he appears in next.

Music - I felt that the music of this series was better quality than anything else. It drew my attention even though it mixed with the scenes quiet well. My ears enjoyed this drama far more than my eyes had...

Rewatch Value - I feel that in a few years, if i came across this drama again, i'd watch it not because i liked it before; but i'd ultimately rewatch it simply because i'd completely forgotten what it was about.

Overall - This drama is far from perfect. A lot of unnecessary angst, extreme heterosexual nonsense, and poor writing was put into this. But if you want something new to watch after having already watched everything else that was already interesting, you /might/ find this interesting. However, I don't find it to be a drama you'd find hard to get over after you finish it.

Lire davantage

The first season and the second season felt completely different. I just feel like i wasted my whole two years waiting for this drama. I am not completely satisfied with the ending and everything. If they already had decided to give Hye yong, JoJO then they should have focused more on their storyline and would have not confused the viewers, Jojo breaking up with Sun oh had not any specific or a good reason, everything os a mess. This is the worst drama i I’ve ever watched. Complete two years wasted for the waiting. I would rate this one 4/10 and the 4 too is because of Sun oh orelse i would have rated 0.

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My ramblings

Original story, beautiful/talented actors, excellent music, and gorgeous outfits. This drama touches on sensitive topics like homosexuality and dark things like teen suicide.

I really liked JoJo in the beginning.... towards the end, not at all and I can sorta see why her BFF started to hate her. She had a great relationship with Sun Oh until he doesn't respond to her for 2 days because he was recovering from a bike accident they had..? She decides during this time that it's best to break up with him because she doesn't want to be hurt. Four years later, she admits to being young and immature and regrets what she did, but does she try to fix it? Nope. She sees how broken Sun Oh is. She even has proof that he still loves her. The easiest thing in the world is to just tell him what happened so he's not blaming himself and unable to get the answers he needs to at least move on. At this point I really feel like JoJo doesn't deserve him now. He's better off with the girl he's with. How the heck is JoJo so full of regret but is now able to give Sun Oh's best friend Hye Young (who she didn't even know existed despite working with him until she got with Sun Oh) a chance but she can't give Sun Oh back his chance? As if she doesn't still feel something for him. How is Hye Young more deserving than Sun Oh?

I see so many people dislike Sun Oh but I personally like a man who knows what he wants. I get that he and Hye Young were best friends but I don't believe Sun Oh intentionally went after Hye Young's crush. Sun Oh even gave Hye Young several chances to confess to JoJo and Hye Young denies it/never does. I love that Sun Oh went for what he wanted and he got the girl until she became stupid. I'm sorry but Hye Young was so annoying to me. He missed his chance and now he needs to leave Sun Oh and JoJo alone - whether they are together or not. The only other character that I REALLLLLYYYY FOOOKING hate more than JoJo is Gul Mi. That girl is awful! Nothing she said even makes sense. How is it JoJo's fault what happened to her parents? Worse, how is JoJo believing that crap? Just seems like everyone started on drugs half way through this drama because it became a bunch of bad decisions with no clear explanations.

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im not sure if i dont like it more or just dont like it.

minor spoilers ( barely anything )



just to point out in the beginning, the only reason why the acting and cast is that high is because i got to look at song kangs face the whole series/show. definitely the highlight of the whole thing was him. the main reason why i watched this show was because i saw it on netflix, saw it was korean, looked at the cast and saw song kang, and immediately got excited. i took time time out of my week to watch it and i honestly wish i didnt. dont get me wrong, its not the worst show in the world but it could be better. the story in general was mediocre, the acting was okay, cast was good, and so on. one of the things that did confuse me is when that one chick ( im so sorry i forgot her name at the moment ) followed that dude down the alley.... he said he needed to tell her something but still- thats not a valid reason to follow someone into an alley way. especially because she wasnt too familiar with him.

would i watch it again? for me, no, i would not watch it again. this is all based on opinion. there are plenty of other reviews that you can look at to get other perspectives of the story.

Lire davantage

Love Alarm Did it. They made like no main character in the show at all.

I already wrote a review on LA2's (Love Alarm 2) page. But I'm here to talk about the 3 of the main roles.

Jo-jo: One of the WORST FL's I could ask for. First, she cheats on her boyfriend by kissing Sun-oh. It was clear Jojo never loved her first boyfriend we saw, (I forgot his name) I have NO CLUE why she never broke up with him in the first place. Basically leading him on. Then don't even get my started with her relationship with Sun-oh. She broke up with Sun-oh for a lousy reason. Because she was scared and that she couldn't deal with the damn problem. She literally ran away from the boy who loved her the most at that time.

Hye-young: Don't even get my started on this mf. THIS DUDE WAS A LITERAL SHADOW IN SEASON ONE. Meaning that he barely had ANY screen time, not even with Jo-jo. And let me remind you, she's the supposed Male Lead. WHAT MAIN LEAD IS GONE THE WHOLE DAMN SEASON?! I swear this mf was lurking in the dark. And barely had ANY communication with Jo-jo at all! I assumed Hye-young was going to be that one shy second lead guy who was the friend of the female lead's but no. Hye-Young is a nice guy but to be a male lead? Not much. I would prefer him as a second lead or even a support role at most.

Sun-Oh: Ok. People might not find anything wrong with Sun-oh but their is one thing that I hated about him. When it came to friendship or love. He picked love. Meaning that Sun-oh and Hye-young's relationship was eventually broken up in Season Two. Sun-oh KNEW from the start that Hye-Young liked Jo-jo yet he tells her that they kissed. What kind of friend is that? You might say that Hye-Young literally told Sun-oh that he didn't like Jo-jo with a blank face. But they were literally friends for YEARS. Since they were kids! And you're telling me Sun-oh can't tell when Hye-young's lying? Okay.

In the end, Jo-jo was a fucked up FL, she could've been better but wasn't. She ended up with the soft guy who literally lurked around the shadows throughout Season One. Nobody deserved Jo-jo in my opinion. Two cute guys ruined their friendship over a dumb FL who doesn't consider anybody's feelings to heart and always ran away from problems cause she couldn't face them without somebody protecting her.

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Love Alarm or as I like to call it "Which dude can Jojo lead on for longer?"

I don't think I've ever seen a show with such lack of development as this one. Characters are falling in love in lass than an episode, which translates to like one day in the story and nothing has a proper explanation. Everything just feels very cheap and out of nowhere. Also, 90% of the time you won't even be able to understand the motivations behind the characters' choices, which makes them look stupid and hard to relate to.

So you might be wondering why I didn't give a lower score to this drama. Well, in spite of its flaws, it's still entertaining. Even though Jojo and Sunoh's relationship comes out of thin air, they're still cute together and Sunoh is pretty supportive of Jojo. The plot sometimes touches really interesting aspects regarding the app and how it affects society and relationships and talks about sexuality, as well, but the writers don't really expand on these themes. The love triangle is surprisingly more developed in this than most dramas, since it shows Jojo interacting and having a good time with both leads to the point that it actually leaves you guessing who she'll end up with.

Jojo on the other hand is straight up a dumbass. I don't understand how the writers want us to sympathize with her for feeling sad and lonely when she was the one who did that to herself. Not to mention that she's a cheater and literally humiliated the guy she loved in front of the entire school and broke his heart for no reason at all.

All things considered it's not complete trash, but don't go in expecting too much.

Lire davantage

doesn't deserve the hate it gets

i left my review in the comments, but im gonna post it here as well:

unpopular OPINION: the only reason why a lot of people claim this to be the "worst" kdrama ever is bc song kang didn't get the girl. hear me out...

if the script/plot stayed exactly the same but the actors were switched, a lot of yall would've ate this drama up.

watched this drama like 3 times and i still liked it as much i did when it first came out. not saying that everyone SHOULD love this drama but i think that the amount of hate this drama got, and still gets, is so forced. trust me, i've seen worst kdramas and this isn't one of them.

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When i first wanted to watch this I was super duper excited about it because it looks sooooo amazing and I was curious about the story... The first ep was mehhh... It was cute and good until one point... The story is wayyy to exaggerated... I've seeen many romantic Kdrama and cdrama and jdrama but the plot was more realistic... The acting was also mehh... Like if I can say "fake" especially the main role boy Sun Oh... I know he was very cute and trying his best to act good but it was nkt enough also the other actress were avarage level... Personally i expected more from Kim... I've seen her in other Kdrama and her level is more high than this one...
About the chemistry between the characters it was kinda cute and sometimes it will get too much... Sometimes it will look like they have a good chemistry between each other than you get that feeling its too fake..
The ost is veryyyy good I can say one of the reasons I didn't drop this Kdrama is bc of the ost.... I love itttt ❤️ anyway i would say its a 5 to watch it... Hope u find this helpful and after you watch it i hope (everyone who took the initiative to watch it bc of this review) to write to me to tell me what they think if they agrre or not... Thank yiu everybody for your time ❤️

Lire davantage

This is one of those show where you will probably be frustrated 95% of the time while watching.

Okay, okay let's get this started, it starts off with us meeting our main characters more stuff happen, ok end of the episode we get Sun-oh asking Jojo if she want to kiss him. Weird but okay. But I'm like if you know she has a "boyfriend" and that your bestfriend likes him, (since you know he does). Then we get this whole monologue of there relationship together for like for like 2 episodes which was sweet and cute and Sun-oh was trying his absolute hardest, you know I don't know if I am happy of annoyed that the "boyfriend" beat Sun-oh up. Anyway we are past this whole high school thing with you know Jojo still having the shield, me wondering why see even put it on, but okay. Then let's move on to some of the other characters before we do this whole time skip thang, ok Hye-yeong bruh I don't get you sometimes why would you not just go after Jojo, or at least tell Sun-oh you like her, at least then maybe he wouldn't have kissed her, I mean I get why he didn't go after her but still (because you know she had a "boyfriend" and probably didn't wanna get a owwwwie like Sun-oh did) but he still got one. But you know I do see why everyone loved them Jojo and Sun-oh I mean they were the cutest while they lasted, and sweetest and Jojo broke Sun-oh's heart, didn't like her there, also am I the only one who cared to notice she didn't really put much effort in their relationship, only me ok. Also quick note am I the only one who tbh didn't like Jojo in the drama to me it seemed she was kind of a meh character. Anyway let's get onto the time skip. 4 years later, we see all of them reuniting on the street you know best way to, and we see Sun-oh has a new girlfriend proud of him for moving on, we also see that our boy Hye-yeong noticed Jojo but didn't say anything, oh and Jojo noticed Sun-oh, during the four year time skip, somehow Hye-yeong keeps running into Jojo (coincidence I think not) and you know he starts hitting on her you know after Sun-oh has a girlfriend, and you know 4 years later everything happened, but you know what Sun-oh gets mad at both of them. Well more like later in the story he gets mad at Hye-yeong and earlier he just tells Jojo to stay away from Hye-yeong so that she doesn't break his heart. Which I am thinking I don't understand you Sun-Oh. So he calls Hye-yeong that he was a word I can't say and calling him all these rude words trying to make Hye-yeong feel bad which I get and don't get, for going after Jojo and stuff like that, but I'm still asking, Sun-oh why do you care that much yes I get you still love her and miss her but you have a wonderful girlfriend, but hey Hye-yeong also did some wrong because he did kind of know he did Sun-oh dirty. But anyway let's go onto you know Jojo's cousin Gul-mi, see but like I still don't understand why she was even in the story since to me they are kind of going off of the webtoon you know by (cutting quite a few Hye-yeong and Jojo scene's not even giving him a chance) and also what right does she think she has to throw out Jojo's clothes and steal her money and like not even a little but like 3 million bruh I can't with that girl, but you know props to Hye-yeong you getting some boyfriend points for protecting her, anyway I don't want to waste my times talking about her so let's move on. Ok Sun-oh's girlfriend (who's name I can't remember off of the top of my head) she is a total sweetheart yo for once she is probably the only character who doesn't get annoyed or mad or throws a fit that Sun-oh can't ring her love alarm cause she wants her relationship to develop, and you know she seems like one of the only decent characters. Anyway we have the season finale, oh I got a lot to say, first off let's talk about the ending itself, we have Sun-oh, Jojo, and Hye-yeong in this like weird Love Alarm situation, and we have Sun-oh girlfriend next to him having no idea what is going on, we also have the "creator" talking about some new updates coming into play, and you know that is pretty much how it ended. As well as we have the developer talking about Love Alarm 2 while Anti Love Alarm people are about the pretty much barge in and ruin the whole event. You choose to end it like that but you know ok that's fine, anyway let's wait for this season 2 is gonna unfold, and If I will be screaming at my TV again. I mean if you want to rewatch it them maybe you won't yell at your screen as much and may notice new things.


Ps: I am more of a Hye-yeong shipper than a Sun-oh shipper so please don't come at me.

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