This review may contain spoilers
I've never watched a drama where I didn't like any of the characters but Love Alarm managed to accomplish that.The entire cast is full of characters that just isn't realist and there will be many times where you will ask, "Why?"
The main female protagonist, Kim Jojo, is one of the most idiotic characters I've ever met. She follows a guy down the alley just because he "has something to say." If this was the real world, she'd have been raped right then and there. She makes poor choices (when you watch it you'll understand which ones) and she never gives a clear explanation as to why she did it. The drama never explains why Jojo decides to go down this route and why she isn't fixing it. The drama plays it off and later on shows that she actually regrets it. Now, I understand why she regrets it and that she wants to undo it, but I don't understand why she isn't even trying to FIX it. She can easily explain her situation and I'm pretty sure everyone will believe her, but she doesn't even attempt it. There are so many plotholes and so many questions that the drama doesn't bother to explain or answer. Maybe because they left it all for season 2 but at the moment it's not released yet so the director cannot expect us to just accept it as it is.
One of the characters I hate more than Jojo is Sun Oh. The drama plays him off as romantic and cool, but he's actually really creepy. His character is childish and selfish and thinks the world revolves around him. Not once did he stop and think about how his best friend or anyone else around him except for the girl.
*SPOILER BELOW*
Hye Young makes it pretty clear that he like Kim Jojo. Although he never outright told Sun oh that he likes Jojo, Sun Oh already knows at this point. And you know what Sun Oh does when he finds out his best friend like this girl?
HE CHASES AFTER HER.
THIS BOI. What is going on in his head? "Hmmm. my best friend, who has always been there for me and supports me, likes this girl and she is his first crush. I should encourage him and let him have the chance to confess first because, after all, he liked her first. But, you know what, because I'm just the shelfish jerk I am, I'll go out there are whisk Jojo away and kiss her right after my best friend tells me he likes her. Brilliant!"
And you know what Hye Young does? NOTHING. FOOKING NOTHING. OMFG. And both of them made a pact and told each other to confess to Jojo at the same time. This way, it's fair to both of them.
BUT NO. N O.
FUCKING SUN OH, LIKE THE BITCH HE IS, DECIDES, "HEY, NOT ONLY DID I KISSMY BEST FRIEND'S CRUSH, I'LL ALSO CONFESS TO HER FIRST EVEN THOUGH I JUST PROMISED HIM WE'LL DO IT TOGETHER."
BITCH WHERE.
BITCH WHO.
I'M PISSED FOR HYE YOUNG.
And after Sun Oh and Jojo breaks up, Sun Oh doesn't let Hye Young go after Jojo. Like bro, it's his life. Just because you broke up with her doesn't mean he has to obey your every command.
And why does Hye Young still like Jojo? Dude, she rejected you like 10 times. Give up.
AND OMIGOD, DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON FUCKING GUL MI.
SHE'S EVEN MORE SELFISH THAN SUN OH.
How is it Jojo's fault that her parents tried to kill her? Why in the world did Gul Mi come to the conclusion that it's Jojo's fault that her parents are broke? And why doesn't Jojo just fight back? Maybe it's because she doesn't want to get kicked out, but still. She should've spoken up about it.
And she thinks that everyone else is beneath her when she herself hasn't gone anywhere in life. She didn't just screw up her life and her cousin's, she also bullies a guy into committing suicide.
You would think at this point she would feel bad, but no. She continues and takes out three million won from Jojo.
And another thing, why is everyone saying Jojo is such a pretty name? No, please stop. Jojo is an anime and forever will be an anime to me.
So, in conclusion, this drama is just plain stupid and frustrating. I could barely finish an episode without getting mad at a character. I wouldn't recommend this drama unless you really like getting frustrated.
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An “ Alarm” Ahead For Terrible Screenwriting ...
Screenwriters Lee Ah Yeon and Seo Bo Ra evidently adapted this from the webtoon for their eponymous contemporary drama “ Love Alarm” centralising upon the same premise of high school student Jo Jo ( Kim So Hyun) and her love triangle with “popular student ” Hwang Sun Oh ( Song Kang) and his “ kind-hearted best friend” Lee Hye Yeong ( Jung Ga Ram), in a world determining love through one app.
By default, this drama should be a masterpiece; its source material and premise are fairly creative and original, the characters are intrinsically interesting and it has a top-notch cast as well. However, “ Love Alarm”’s biggest inconsistencies can be pinpointed to two focal areas; characterisation ( or the lack of it) and the lingering problems which arise through the existence of the alarm itself.
Perhaps the biggest elephant in the room to tackle is our main heroine Jo Jo. It is made pretty evident that Jo Jo actually has a lot of intriguing qualities as our main character; her circumstances growing up have been difficult, she’s struggled with trauma and she’s never been “ overly exposed” to the love alarm ( like the viewer) in the same way her fellow peers have .
Yet whilst Jo Jo has all the right qualities of being a relatable and well-written main character, her actual personality traits make her seem a fairly hollow “ Mary Sue”, rather than an actual flawed human being. She’s deemed as “ pretty, smart and popular” by her peers yet the two latter classifications were fairly flawed in terms of who Jo Jo is supposed to be as a character. Jo Jo being “ popular” isn’t an immediately ridiculous trope with the considered factors of her “ attractive” appearance and being book smart, but let’s be honest in considering that Jo Jo lives in a society still determined by trends as a form of social hierarchy .Even in an alternate society, this seemingly manifests to the idea of the app “ Love Alarm”, something Jo Jo prominently does not have. Whilst this in itself is of course not something Jo Jo would realistically be written out as suddenly “ not being popular” , it would still remain obvious even amongst Jo Jo’s social crowds that she isn’t up to date on certain trends and styles, something which was neither realistically raised or shown critically in the show at all.
Additionally, Despite Jo Jo’s seeming intelligence and her circumstances leading to at least some street smart personality traits , Jo Jo is a shockingly dim-witted character within putting herself in danger or helping to create numerous misunderstandings throughout the show. Of course this was supposed to intensify the “ drama” and make Jo Jo’s feelings more heightened for the two male leads, however, it seemed even if Jo Jo was more “ naive” of her actions than anything else, cruelly ignorant to lead on both Sun Oh and Hye Yeong, two individuals who clearly hold feelings for her, than create the amount of ridiculous dilemmas as she did in the drama. Whilst the drama wanted us to feel evident pity for Jo Jo in the season one finale, it was hard to truly feel attachment towards a character who had little to really offer in the first place.
Naturally this moves us onto the problems of our two main leads Sun Oh and Hye Yeong. Arguably, Sun Oh does have some more noticeable character traits than Jo Jo in the beginning of the series; he’s rich, and similarly popular , but acts out in his often “ stoic” manner because of his own inner psychological turmoil surrounding lacking parental love.
This in itself should have been something which drew Sun Oh and Jo Jo upon their similarities ; Jo Jo may not have parents whilst Sun Oh does, but they both lack that intrinsic parental love which most of their peers have had and thus struggle to find love in the same way. Yet as much as Sun Oh did have some interesting character qualities, he wasn’t given the chance to either grow or mature with his relationship with Jo Jo at all over the course of the series. In fact, Sun Oh is strikingly quite a selfish and fractious character who neither seems to actually reflect or learn from any of his mistakes even going as emotionally gaslight his best friend and
ruin his relationship with both Jo Jo and Hye Yeong rather than actually mature as an individual .
Arguably Hye-Yeong did have more likeable qualities out of Sun Oh as a love interest and Jo Jo as a main character; he often comes off as complacent, but at least this is actually made prominent as one of his flaws, which he learns to mature upon with his pursuit of Jo Jo - the girl he harbours a crush upon without the need of the app. On the other hand, what is undeniably annoying about Hye-Yeong as a character, is that he is often a little too forceful upon Jo Jo when she made her feelings evident at times in the show, and ironically too staid rather than sticking up for himself when Sun Oh began to emotionally gaslight him. Whilst Hye-Yeong had all the right qualities of being possibly one of the few well-written characters in the show, he often felt too irregular as a character; jumping from sudden growth to reversal in two seconds flat.
As for the rest of the characters of the show, Love Alarm is a halcyon for your typical minor trope characters, yet perhaps one minor character who arguably had many intriguing characteristics was “ outcast” Cheon Duk Goo( Lee Jae Eung). Duk Goo plays an undeniable major role within the events of the series and realistically has a lot of inevitable flaws including his own lack of self-confidence. Nevertheless, it was berating even with the app, exactly what Duk Goo, possibly one of the few decent characters of the show, saw in Gul Mi ( Go Min Si); Jo Jo’s “ popular” and selfish cousin. Perhaps it is entirely wrong to attack Gul Mi per say as being entirely “ horrible” as she did have some noticeable problems from being spoilt by her mother, as well as pressurised due to her popularity to “ fit in” with her classmates and Duk Goo’s involvement as her “alarm” entirely threatened this from her point of view. On the other hand, it was still fairly hard to see Duk Goo learn from his mistakes as well as Gul Mi actually maturing from being a selfish schoolgirl , in addition to fundamental questions about how the app actually works .
These dilemmas include; how such an app would be legalised or not face backlash ( protests or negativity) openly, if the app can or has made “ errors” or faced glitches over more than one love alarm per person , why the presumed “app developer” hadn’t been approached by greater technology firms wishing to invest or purchase the app’s rights, as well as of course more upon the “ love alarm” for same-sex couples. Although the show briefly mentioned about the public shame of the love alarm in this scenario, it felt a little sugarcoated not to explain or develop into characters who have faced this. Finally, there’s the most evidential problem of how this app actually works.
The ideology of the app is undeniably artistic licensing; we’re not really supposed to “ understand” the actual methods of the app and we can presume certain theories towards how this actually functions. Nevertheless, there were several lingering questions which were naturally raised about the app’s existence in Love Alarm throughout the series.
So, this leaves us on the most obvious question. Is Love Alarm actually worth watching? Love Alarm undeniably has an intriguing story premise, high production value and a top-notch cast. On the other hand, Love Alarm is simply its own worst enemy when it comes to avoiding falling into tropes, badly-written characters and plot inconsistencies. With a second season on the horizon, it’s wrong to entirely draw out that the story won’t smooth over some of these issues, and there are certainly some interesting ideas going forwards. It’s probably fair to say that Love Alarm isn’t a “ dire” show and certainly something to watch if you’re fan of “ cute, romantic and fluffy” dramas. On the other hand, this show is a waste of time if you’re looking for actual investment in well-written main leads, a sensical storyline and realistic and deep critiques which should have been raised in a show tackling such ideas of technology intermingled with relationships .
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This review may contain spoilers
I have a major bone to pick with this drama.The idea for this drama was eye-catching. An app that tells who who's in love with you if they're in a 10m radius? Sounds kind of sci-fi and would definitely be interesting in a high school setting. I'm a sucker for high school dramas so I thought this would be something new to try. Boy I could NOT have been more wrong...
First of all, the motives for Sunoh's actions were creepy; Jojo should NOT have followed him into an alley, and literally WHAT was up with him going to kiss her IMMEDIATELY after he realized Hyeyeong, his best friend, was in love with her?? Can you have a heart?? I understand you were raised differently and don't know how to act in those kinds of situations but god damn, LAY OFF. Sunoh acted like a baby throwing a tantrum through this whole show, it was downright IRRITATING.
Jojo was only mildly more bearable, but I didn't understand why Sunoh fell in love with her in the first place: there was nothing inherently special about her character because her entire character was based around her trauma; there was no other traits about her that were played up. Imagine only liking someone for their tragic backstory. I know she was like "oh I'm trying to be cheerful despite all that's happened" bitch WHERE you look MISERABLE ALL THE TIME. I became increasingly tired of her towards the end when it's very apparent she could have solved all of her problems just by telling Sunoh and Hyeyoung about the shield. I know there's going to be a season 2, but many of these issues could have already been solved if she had just come clean about her feelings in the first place, saving both her and Sunoh a world of pain.
Hyeyoung... this poor boy was really just trying his best but god damn... grow a backbone PLEASE. You KNOW you have a shitty best friend but you are not obligated to stand by him all the time because you are your own person with your own opinions and feelings. When we finally got that at the end when he was being honest with Jojo, it was like [gordan ramsay meme but it says"finally some good fucking CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT"]. Honest to god, FUCK JEONG SUN OH. It was more than right for him to leave the guy after standing by him even after he went after the girl he clearly loved. The moment he left that robot behind was the only fucking good character development.
Also a moment of silence for Hyeyoung's mom. She ain't dead, we just appreciate her for being a nice and kind mom.
Other than that, the casting was good despite the acting being sub par. Overall, would not give this drama another look. This is eight hours of my life I will not get back, but I guess it was good to see Jojo and Hyeyoung grow towards the end.
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I cant really explain it, but this show is just such a disappointment, I really hoped it'd get better and nope. It didnt. It really didnt. It just got worse and pissed me off even more. And the characters. I cannot get over how bad... Damn
Get a better scrip hunty this aint it.
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This review may contain spoilers
Everything about this drama is extremely westernised. Not surprising considering this is a Netflix production, but the Korean drama charm is not there:
- 40 minutes long episodes of a 8 episode season, with a second season coming (very untraditional to kdrama)
- Kiss on the very first few episodes.
- No aesthetics whatsoever.
- Very westernised cinematography.
- Absolutely no humor/light-hearted moments. Everything is dramatic and serious.
- Very dull, cheesy or otherwise dry conversations between characters with little personality.
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This review may contain spoilers
This turned out to be a big dissapointment. I have to say that I really love the idea of the Joalert. Before it was aired, when I read the plot I thought that it was indeed a cool idea and that it would be a great drama. I was thinking that the love alert would have many paths to take( you could make a romantic story or go from romantic to something really fucked up). Indeed, they do throw in some protests or mass suicide or a rapist but they were just a few seconds from a long time of basically nohing.I see no sense in Jo Jo s family story and trauma. It s true that I haven t seen until now in a drama a kid that survived that kind of a thing but, again, it had almost no connection with the story. Scenes must mesh together but in Love Alarm they are like different stories put blindly together. The evil cousin and aunt, her difficulties and how the cousin kept saying that she killed her parents were ABSURD.
How Sun Oh stole, really stole his best friend s crush was a really bad move, it s hard to love him after he did that as a character. He s lucky that he is better looking so it makes you forget how childish and unacceptable his actions are. I understand a love triangle but that usually happens after each guy crushes on the girl but kinda not knowing about the other or they are enemies. In the end only they fight over her. Here? As soon as he hears about Hye Young s crush, Sun Oh goes immediately and kisses her because??? On what basis did he fall for her? He didn t for fuck s sake. It s something that leaves you stupid. Like what the hell did just happen?
What s the purpose of the scene where after the accident she couldn t contact him and went to his house and everything? I found it useless. Just time lost that could ve been replaced with some full of sense scenes. And after that the breakup. Why? Why?? Jesus.
I really liked Deok Goo though.
Another thing is the 8 episode release. Again. Why? Can t we have it the old kdrama way with 16/ 20 or whatever? I really hate the Netflix involvement here.
In conclusion this is bad. Really bad. I m not sure if I ll watch the sequel (if there will be one). God, I m so upset over it
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This review may contain spoilers
First of all, I really enjoyed the plot. It's not an ordinary one. In fact, I love how it treats about high technology and the way it effects society. Something that surprised me actually is that this kdrama portrayed homosexuality! South Korea is a pretty conservative country and the fact that the director had insisted on portraying it makes me realize their society is becoming more accepting :) The feeling of anxiety, always being on the lookout, embarrassment, acceptance, denial, excitement were well portrayed by the main leads. I support Kim So hyun haha, she's a very good actress. I've known her since School 2015 and I know her capability. Our rookies here Jung Ga Ram and Song Kang did an excellent job and I'm sure they'll be very successful in their acting career in the future.
Okay now the things i disliked about the character: Sun Oh.
He's very possessive, clingy, creepy and hard to like. I couldn't really stand his character. The moment he went after Jojo, I lost it. Is something wrong with him? He clearly knows that Hyeyeong, his loyal and kind childhood friend liked her and he STILL WENT AFTER HER. It was almost as if he didn't want Hyeyeong to get the girl and started to used his'' charms'' that any girl can fall for to Jojo for which she in fact did fall for. It's so disgusting to the part where Song kang says something like'' Oh you were never by my side all along''. Like *****, first of all, he did let you have the girl and didnt complain about it. Grow up.
Anyways yeah that was my rant about how unbelievably disgusting his character is.
Overally, good show that is binge worthy. We'll see what happens!
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This review may contain spoilers
I must admit that I may not be part of the target audience for this drama, but I'll explain why I gave "Love Alarm" this rating.I freaking love Kim So Hyun (Jojo), so a new drama staring her as the main role again = I was super hyped. The only reason the "Acting/Cast section of the rating is not a 10 is because I really did not like the main Guy ( Song Kang ).
I dont know for real, how he approached Kim Jojo was really creepy in my opinion and not romantic what so ever.
The moral values are very superficial. The app can detect how in love people are, but every time they explain why the alarm rings, the reason is always the same, It's either "she/he is so pretty" or "idk man I cant control it whatever bruh it wont change"
The first episode is a bit silly, and it's okay but the only thing that motivated me to watch episode 2 is my completionnist instinct. The concept could've been even more interesting. I had hopes when the main couple broke up and Hye young was like "I want to try to do things the old fashion way" when him an Jojo were talking at the Library.
Sike ! One episode later he downloads the app again and they all depend on it . ( even if the momment when he turns arround her on his bike to ring the alarm over and over again was cute, I admit.)
The music is okay, not wow, but if you wacth 8 episodes of a drama and dont know the songs by hearth at the end, for me, it's a good thing.
But the main reason I did not like it that much is because it was presented as a "love triangle story", but it was really disapointing. Jojo and Hwang Sun Oh love each other pretty much for the whole time (except for the shield incident at the end) and Lee Hye Young, as much as I like him, did not have a big impact. Nothing happens in this "triangle" except for the end when they hang out as friends. So if you like dramas where the main couple live happily then break up out of the blue for plot purpose, good news.
To end on a good note it's still cool seing Kim So Hyun acting and here are some personnal suggestions, enjoy :
- A nice "love triangle" drama: Dream High
- A nice "cute couple" drama: Fight for my way
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The writers had to cut so many aspects of this story,that is a new topic in drama land,just because of the 8 episode rule that Netflix had.What is the result of that? The show ended with a cliff hanger making us wait for season two.They could've at least give answers to some questions but were more like "No,lets finish this in the most incomplete way."
The acting is not bad,but it's not something amazing either.you could've either sense the lack of experience in the two main leads or maybe that was the way that the director wanted them to act,either way it wasn't perfect.
Another unbelievable fact for me is the way that this drama is so bad at the music and OST.
But what is strange and in the same time good,is the way the whole series wants you to stay and watch what happens to the characters.so is it worth watching? If you have time and want a good love triangle,why not.
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This review may contain spoilers
(Spoilers further down)I finished this in a few days (3 or 4) and I really regret staying up to watch it and spending so much time. The premise of the drama itself is interesting. HOWEVER, the characters are not well written AT ALL. They make irrational decisions with no reasoning and none of them are held accountable. It makes no sense how people can do such senseless things and have no repercussions. I enjoyed the romance part but I almost couldn't watch parts because of how frustrated I was with certain characters and how their actions made ZERO sense.
SPOILERS BELOW
My first problem with this drama is that they present Hye-yeong and Sun-oh as best friends how truly care about each other. Then, when Hye-yeong makes it CLEAR that he likes Jojo, Sun-oh decides that he for some reason has to be with her. Why? Because she stared at him a few times and didn't have love alarm? Who knows. It makes no sense that someone would do that to their "best friend" who clearly has a major crush on someone. Even when they talk about it and agree they will tell her together, Sun-oh still goes and asks Jojo out himself. And Hye-yeong does nothing! Wtf? Does he not like her?
Next problem: Jojo's family. Her cousin is the WORST. And Jojo just allows her to do it. The thing that she holds over her head (that Jojo survived? and not her parents?) would not really hold any weight over Jojo in real life. She clearly did nothing wrong and was a very young kid so why is anything her fault? It's not, but they needed something in the story to make things hard for her.
Next problem: Hye-yeong was rejected by Jojo SO MANY TIMES. Why can't he just take no for an answer. Yeah, she kinda likes him, but in real life, people don't reject others that many times if they like them. He is being a creep.
BIGGEST PROBLEM: there was no reason at all for her to break up with Sun-oh. Yes she was going through a lot of stuff emotionally, but ? ? why? ? there is no real reason and I hate it.
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This review may contain spoilers
Messy, but addictive
The premise for this honestly caught my eye, and I've been super excited for it for ages. It turned out to be nothing like what I'd expected, and to be honest it was kind of a hot mess. AND YET, it was addictive and I felt anxious watching it.It's messy because it basically threw all the cliches into a pot and used all of them—rich man/poor girl, best friend love triangle, characters screaming their emotions into the void, backstabbing best friend, Cinderella's step-family...but the way they did it was completely unexpected and not in the order you'd expect.
I was really annoyed with all the characters' actions right off the bat: Jo-Jo for being a cheater, Sun-Oh for stabbing his friend in the back, and Hye-Young for being a creepy stalker. I felt like people were only rooting for him because they saw his perspective, but from Jo-Jo's point of view, he barely even talked to her and just creepily followed her everywhere.
Because of all the characters' immature personalities, for once I felt like the time skip was in the right place. And as someone who usually DETESTS all time jumps, I really liked how it was inserted, and how the characters changed during that time. I do hate that noble idiocy is such a huge plot point, but the fact that it took place in the time skip made it a bit better, even though I still found myself frustrated with the flashback scenes.
The time skip was also helpful in getting me to not hate Hye-Young, because I liked his character development and how he finally took action, instead of always looking from afar. Even though his character is growing on me though, I still definitely have second lead syndrome and am rooting for Sun-Oh.
The cinematography and visual effects were the best part of this entire thing. I loved the sound effects. how the app looks, how everything was filmed, and how the 10m radius is edited. EVERYTHING.
I really wish there was more sismance and bromance. The bromance was nice, even though it crashed and burned near the end. On the other hand, there was ZERO sismance, and I hated how all the female characters (other than Kim Jo-Jo) were portrayed as boy-obsessed, shallow, gossipy, etc. Honestly, Jo-Jo's minor scenes with her wedding work friend were so refreshing—and more friendship is needed in this entire drama, which would work out to balance all the romance drama.
Because it was so romance heavy, I also found myself loving the scenes that delved into more Black Mirror territory and talked about heavier topics, like the protests, exploitation, suicides, etc. I really wished that that was a bigger part of the story, because there's a lot of potential for the characters to get involved in more than the melodrama cliches.
I also appreciate the lowkey LGBT mentions and how it's addressed with "It's not like you can control your feelings." MORE, please!
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