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Love Alarm: A Technologically-Charged Love Triangle
"Love Alarm" is a South Korean drama that captivates audiences with its unique premise, exploring the intricacies of love and technology through the lens of a digital app that signals romantic interest. The series comprises two seasons, each delving into the lives of its characters and their complex relationships.One of the standout aspects of "Love Alarm" is its characters' compelling backstories, especially the main characters. Kim Jo-jo, the female lead, portrayed by Kim So-hyun, carries a history marred by tragedy and heartbreak, adding depth to her character and explaining her cautious approach to love. Similarly, Sun-oh (Song Kang) and Hye-yeong (Jung Ga-ram), the two male leads, have well-developed backstories that shed light on their personalities and motivations. While their backstories are well developed when it comes to their characteristics they are simply unrealistic. Whether it was the poor acting or direction/script or a mix of both none of the characters are likeable.
Season 1 introduces viewers to the innovative Love Alarm app, which rings to notify users when someone nearby harbors romantic feelings for them. This sets the stage for a love triangle between Jo-jo, Sun-oh, and Hye-yeong. The plot, while cliche, is tinged with an unrealistic portrayal of the impact of technology on relationships. The notion that an app can dictate love and attraction oversimplifies the complexities of human emotions, making the characters' actions and reactions feel contrived. The initial start of the love triangle with the first relationship between Suh-oh and Jo-jo starts of unrealistically and is rather toxic as Suh-oh was aware of Hey-yeong's feelings. While toxic, there were definitely cute puppy love moments between the two which really showed the two actors chemistry.
In Season 2, the love triangle further intensifies as the characters navigate the consequences of their choices. Despite the intriguing premise, the plot tends to lean towards predictability, following the conventional trajectory of a love triangle. The lack of nuance and exploration of alternative relationship dynamics leaves the audience desiring more depth and complexity in the storytelling.
Moreover, character development, takes a back seat in Season 2. The relationship between Jo-jo and Hye-yeong feels rather forced and lacks true chemistry compared to her and Suh-oh in Season 1. This ruins the overall dynamics of the love triangle and may leave some viewers dissatisfied with the resolution.
In summary, "Love Alarm" presents a fascinating concept of love intersecting with technology through an attention-grabbing app. While the main characters have rich backstories that add depth to the narrative they are lacking in actual characteristics, the portrayal of their interactions and the overall plot tends to oversimplify the complexities of human relationships. The series is a disappointing watch, particularly for those who enjoyed the webtoon or love watching webtoon-based dramas.
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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.
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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.
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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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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 ❤️
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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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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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So here's the review part:This drama is the type of drama where you can see the flaws and not help but talk about them out loud, but also the type of drama where you wouldn't care about its flaws and watch non-stop otherwise. This drama was realistic and unrealistic at the same time; most of the realistic parts were about the hard truth of life and most of the unrealistic parts were mostly concerning the romance part of this drama. I may say that some romance parts of this drama were unrealistic, but that may be because I am used to the 1 season/16 episode format of most dramas. I am not familiar with dramas having 2 seasons or more; meaning, dramas like this are probably meant to be unnaturally fast-paced. The overall story was enough to pique my interest. This was probably due to the main(?) conflict of the drama; I kept watching every episode as I was curious to whom the main female lead would fall in love with at the end. This simple reason kept me wanting more (also why this drama deserves a score of 8.0-8.5), and why I am eagerly waiting for the release of a second season.
This is the rant part: >:(
I'm sorry but I can't believe most people prefer Sun-Oh over Hye Yeong. Besides Sun-Oh's romantic side, he's completely messed up. He has such a bad attitude and is a complete hypocrite. First of all, Hye Yeong fell in love with Jojo first; not to mention, Sun-Oh knew about it and still daringly flirted with Jojo. Sun-Oh keeps making Hye Yeong seem like the bad guy; saying he was never on his side (bich he took care of you ever since you were both little). Sun-Oh said at the 16:15 mark "You know exactly what Kim Jojo did to me. Yet how could you, of all people, do this to me?" (what a hypocrite this guy is); like I said before, Sun-Oh knew from the very beginning that Hye Yeong liked Jojo, Hye Yeong treated Sun-Oh very warmly and as mentioned in the previous episodes he was there for Sun-Oh during his hard times (unlike Jojo having no one). So how could Sun-Oh, of all people, do that to his dear friend, Hye Yeong. With the way things are going (with my personal preference in this drama), the only acceptable ending would be Jojo ringing Sun-Oh's love alarm but also love alarm 2.0 predicting that Hye Yeong becoming "the person you will fall in love with".
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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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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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Lackluster
The idea is an interesting one for a plot. It's not one you would consider thinking through because when you do then it doesn't make sense. However, while the idea piques interest, the execution falls flat. The main characters are not interesting. I don't think I can pinpoint any personality traits from the main girl other than being sad, being awkward, or being regretful over her actions. She's bland and one you can insert yourself with but that is not a likable character. Issues with the love interest fall in terms of miscommunication which is an annoying trope at this point. And despite an impact where the characters are forced to change, the main girl remains the same which she shouldn't.Was this review helpful to you?
