Love Alarm

The reason for low ratings.

Clearly, the most of the viewers have watched this whole show while being biased towards one of the male leads.
Whenever a love triangle is strong, the rating of the series get heavily affected.

Watching from a neutral point of view, without liking one ML over the other, the story was quite well executed. I loved the OST, the production was obviously very high as Netflix was involved, the animations were superb.

The female lead because of the her horrible past, was quite selfish in some of her choices as clearly portrayed at the end of Season 2 as she herself comes to realize how selfish her choices were.

Unfortunately the ones to suffer due to female lead's choices were the two male leads. Considering that Sun-Oh fell for JJ knowing how much of a crush his best friend had on her and Hye-yeong also was ultimately unable to keep the childhood promise he made to Sun-Oh. The whole thing is a a bit Karmic and balances everything out.

With everyone having their share of trouble and ultimately finding some kind of happiness in the end.

This is only worth watching if you are able to watch it without tilting towards one of the male leads, If you do then you will be very angry the way the story goes and how it ends.

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Different kind of Kdrama Strong plot

I love this Kdrama because was different, we can see different kind of loves, the young Love and how is passionate and selfish withoute looking who is who, and the adults Love when you find a person who is the right for you and you have the same values, dreams and struggles. If someone don't like how end up things just remember how selfish was Sun Oh, in first episode, when he knew that he best friend love her, was a game for him in the beginning to Challenge Lee Hye. Sun Oh was selfish and not a good friend ,he have to pass a few stages in life and will become more grounded and mature. In the other hand Lee Hye when he finds out about Sun Oh and Kim Jo Jo he stepped back and has the patience to love her and be in his friends side, when the time comes Sun Oh doesn't do the same for him. This Kdrama sends a lot of messages one of them is don't judge someone only about how the way he looks. I know Sun Oh was cute and handsome but Lee Hye has a loveable character and was the right person for Kim Jo Jo. Sorry for my bad English I hope you understand what I mean.

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Where are the answers? :o :o

I am so unsatisfied. This is the kind of plot that keeps me waiting for answers but never gives them. I don't get what the message of this drama was. It's just continuous pain, which I don't mind being the theme of a movie/series as life unfortunately can be quite painful, but this drama seemed to try to send a more positive message. I clearly didn't get it.
On the characters, I felt sorry for all of them and I don't think there were many people in this drama that didn't had me worried about there mental health.
Also (spoiler coming),
lost friendships are my weak spot and they really break my heart. As someone who cannot leave things unspoken, it left me so unsatisfied how, !multiple times!, these characters couldn't express their worries and pain better.

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Just a major disappointment

Premise was interesting. I picked this up one day at like 1 am to pass the time, I realized after 4 episodes in I wasn't really into it but as the masochist I am I finished it. I hate love triangles so that part wasn't appealing to me. Though I was rooting for the first lead even though he was a walking red flag, I'm shallow so I liked him because he was cuter and not because he was better for her. It's a show so sue me for not trying to be realistic.

I hated the heroine's family, she been needed to cut her ties.

I think the most unappealing part of the love triangle was that the second lead had been working with the heroine for a while, sometimes followed her to the bus stop but could barely hold a conversation with her and then sweeps in his best friend who likes the heroine and is bold asl. He asks the second lead if he's into the heroine and the second lead say no, granted the hero could obviously see he likes the heroine because he asks multiple times, so that was iffy to me because why date your best friend's crush.

Fast forward with all the love triangle drama the first lead doesn't even end up with the girl and there's a second season and she ends up with the second lead... Too much drama within these boy's friendship just for one of them to actually get the girl, granted the second lead deserved her way more but I just didn't ship her with either of them

Overall plot was flat and disappointing, romance was dull and had a love triangle so double dull, the ending sucked.

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film study aspects of love alarm 2019

i really love anything with a fantasy or scifi element and also films made from webtoons. what made this a ten for me though was the cinematography and editing. >the creators are very fond of really beautiful almost still shots of the subjects. you notice this in the first episode when they show a slightly aerial view of the brick alley that plays such a prominent role in this entire drama. they didn't cut out the distractions in the foreground or resort to slow motion in these moments. as the drama goes on, you realize that these shots are so short that the scene cuts long before other films employing the beauty of these kinds of frames. >the other thing i wanted to mention is the extensive use of colour editing and light overlays. >the colour editing is nothing unique in itself except that i have not seen it applied to a drama like this. the memory montages of the main characters are always beautifully lit up, inverted, mirrored, vignetted, completely drained or saturated, etc. i colour edit myself so i did not see anything that made me say omf how the hell did they do that? but for what they did i truly appreciated the fact that it was such a unique feature of this show. >for the light overlays, you see this constantly in the form of incandescent digital circles and spheres forming around love alarm users. from the shell of my own experience, at first it felt like too much. but as my mind worked around it, it felt fresh because this particular style has everything to do with young video editors the last few years. the light circles play a pivotal role in the entire work, they remind you again and again that this is a very strange world compared to ours.>i can't not say anything about the actors. one scene in particular made me gasp i think. it's the scene where (ep 1 spoiler ahead) Sunoh is returning home from having kissed Jojo and he pauses in his yard. the lighting is perfect twilight. he stares across the expanse at Hye Yeong's bike looking pained and then Hye Yeong shows up next to it. Sunoh's eyes in that moment are just A+ 100, clap, crying & ok fingers emojis. >Sunoh's character is super interesting to me as well. the way he emotionally clings to both of the other characters especially. there's an innocence and curiosity there that the actor made come to life so well. >this is one hell of a Rare Ten for me.

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disappointing

This is one of the worst. Season 1 shows some potential, but season 2 goes downhill quickly. Jo-jo, the lead female, and Sun-oh developed love at high school. Since Sun-oh is rich and handsome, other girls became jealous and turned against Jo-jo. Sun-oh defended Jo-jo and loved her deeply, and told her that she should never abandon him. After a motorcycle accident, Sun-oh suffered a more serious injury and lost contact with Jo-jo. Hye-yeong, best friend of Sun-oh, initially helped Jo-jo to go to Sun-oh’s house to visit him; Jo-jo overheard that his parents would send him to the US if he continued to see Jo-jo. As a self-protection and “for the sake of Sun-oh”, Jo-jo ended her relationship with Sun-oh despite deep hurt to him and her love for him. In the meanwhile, Hye-yeong helped Jo-jo when she was bullied by her aunt and her cousin. In the moment of despair and loneliness, Jo-jo agreed to date Hye-yeong even though there is no love alarm for him. Sun-oh continued to pursue Jo-jo because he was in deep pain and he still had strong love for her. Jo-jo rejected him repeatedly and even activated a shield in the Love Alarm app to hide her love for Sun-oh. After seeing Sun-oh again, Jo-jo went to the developer of Love Alarm to disable the shield so her true love can be shown; but she was told the shield can’t disabled. This is a huge lie since you can always get a new phone or start a new installation of the App. It is clear that Jo-jo still has feelings towards Sun-oh. Sun-oh finally confronted her on her deception (hiding her love); she said she regretted the decision everyday, but said she made the right decision to protect herself. She was shaken and was going to tell Hye-yeong that she was to end the relationship with him; but she did not have the courage to tell him the truth since she was afraid that she would hurt his feelings. After several back-n-forth, she chose to stay with Sun-oh by convincing herself that she was truly in love with Sun-oh despite the love alarm rating. This time, she used a spear in Love Alarm to force a love alarm on Sun-oh. Her action was praised by the developer of the love alarm because will can determine true love. In the end, Jo-jo and Sun-oh became a happy couple; Hye-yeong was still recovering from the deep hurt; there was no reconciliation between Jo-jo and her aunt and cousin, between Hye-yeong and Sun-oh.

The ending was a surprise and terrible. The overall message is (1) it’s okay to be selfish in order to survive, (2) it is okay to be not faithful to vows (please do not abandon me, we will stick together), (3) it is okay to steal your best friend’s girl friend when the couple are vulnerable, (4) there is no remedy for the past mistake, (5) perpetuating past mistake is okay, (6) it is okay to escape from difficult situation while hurting loved ones deeply (and not standing up to bullies), like Jo-jo’s parents did (committing suicide with Jo-jo).

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NOT BIG SPOILER this contains just a few things you should know before watching this drama

This drama was different from the others i usually watch. That's why many watchers are dissappointed in this drama. Well firstly the FL mett her first love in school, then broke up with him and few years later falling in love with his best friend. That would not be that bad but they made whole season 1 and 2 look like she and her first love are supposed to be together. I was very dissappointed in storyline becouse i wanted somebody other to be the ML actually in the end i ended up crying. But i would not put this drama between those bad ones, i would just say it was waaaaay too realistic i mean the romance and for somebody it could be a big dissapointment. So you can try watch it but be aware of the twisted ending.

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Don't bother

This whole show was mediocre.

What kind of guy goes and kisses his best friend’s crush? Sun-oh went and kissed Jojo when he knew his best friend liked her, and Sun-oh’s best friend just lets him do whatever he pleases!? What has Sun-oh done to earn so much of this man’s respect? This didn’t gain my respect for him as a viewer.

Now, I understand that Jojo and her boyfriend were having problems and not really feeling it anymore, but she shouldn’t have done anything with Sun-oh without breaking up with her boyfriend first. Nevertheless, the chemistry between the leads was definitely there, but aside from face value, it didn’t get any deeper than that which was a letdown. If this show was fun, light-hearted and fluffy, I wouldn’t have been disappointed, but seeing as it’s more serious and has zero comedy, I can’t help but find it lacking in that regard. Each episode was just ‘they rang my alarm,’ ‘they didn’t ring my alarm!’ It just seems very shallow.

I wasn’t okay with how the leads got together in five minutes with Sun-oh basically forcing himself on Jojo WHILST she had a boyfriend!

Jojo is just a heartbreaker - she broke up with Sun-oh, for whatever reason, and then blew off Sun-oh’s best friend.

I’m glad they addressed the issue of ‘those who have never been liked.’ It’s no surprise Duk-gu killed himself but I am still confused how he could be attracted to Jojo’s cousin when she is such a bitch! Side note: what windows don’t have safety latches on them nowadays? That must have been an ancient building to allow the windows to open up all the way.

The biggest issue with this story is how does a phone detect someone’s romantic feelings? I’m guessing this show is pinned as urban fantasy? The vibe I was getting from this show is that it is realistic, but for this made-up app to work, it must be fantasy. I feel like if there was a better explanation as to how the app worked I wouldn’t have been so bothered by it. The characters kept saying ‘someone rang their alarm’ so does this mean they were going into the app and pressing a button, or does "the phone" know when its user has romantic feelings and makes it ring? The latter is what I think the writer’s were trying to portray, but it is just too incomprehensible.

There was plenty of good acting and okay music, but this didn’t make up for the average story. I found myself being moved the most when Jojo’s aunt told her to leave the house after having their fight. I was confused as to why the aunt and cousin hated Jojo so much, like how is it an iddy biddy child’s fault that their parents took their own lives and left debt? AND the parents tried to kill Jojo so she wouldn’t suffer anyway. I can understand the situation her aunt was put in, but couldn’t she have been a little more understanding? Heck, if the child was that much of a burden, could she not have adopted it out?

Needless to say, I have zero intention of watching season 2.

-E

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This is like Mac and Cheese as it wasn't good for me but I couldn't stop eating it

Love Alarm has something going on interesting at it's core that kept me going. Frankly, the show is at it most compelling when it is exploring the premise and the idea behind it. Of an app that has that much of an impact on relationships and the consequences. Which I wish there was more of in the drama even though that's the whole idea. We are supposedly exploring the concept of the app through the love triangle but it falls flat. I almost wish the love triangle didn't exist because you could easily dive into the appeal of Love Alarm without it. From here on spoilers...

So the three main characters are standard enough which is fine by me. They each have something going on so at least nothing feels like imbalanced characterization even though they are tropey. But whatever- the problem is that the love between Sun-Oh and Jojo ,which jumpstarts the plot, just comes out of nowhere.
He literally saw his best friend admire a girl and then he clung on to that- and decided like her too. Which is just...so not cool and it is hard to root for a guy like that- no matter how cute.

But damn it I kept going because of course I had to know more.
So at the end of it- I was pleasantly surprised because the end couple actually makes sense. I like how it delves into the aspects about the app but the love triangle shenanigans made no sense due to the insta-love between Sun-Oh and Jojo.
I think if you want to give this drama a quick watch for a fluff fix go ahead. Not anything too special

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not good...

This was my first k-drama LOL.... I'm writing this review after like almost a year of being addicted to k-dramas so my rating isn't that good but to be honest it would be much better if I wrote it right after finishing it. But since I know that there are some really good masterpieces among k-dramas, i cannot give this series better ratings, sorry not sorry.
I remember being so freaking excited for season 2...it's actually cute but also pretty cringe lmao
Anyways, i don't remember details and I'm definitely not rewatching it just for this review so please excuse me if I don't include something or if I write something wrong, feel free to correct me :)
The story was so so....it wasn't the worst but sometimes it felt like it's not moving anywhere. It was still the same. I don't really remember the characters that well and idk how well the actors played their roles but I remember liking it, so i guess it wasn't anything tragic. Yes, it was my first k-drama, but not my first series so I think I could say if someone is acting good or not so good :)) I don't remember the music at all, like seriously I don't, so excuse me, i can't really tell you how was it. Would I rewatch it? No. I'm 100% sure that there are so many better k-dramas, i haven't seen yet, so i don't want to waste the time i could spend on them, spend on rewatching this one. Maybe, if i would be really bored, didn't know what to watch at all....no, not even then, i'd just rewatch Semantic Error ( very good BL if you don't know, definitely check it out <3 ) lol
Overall...6.5/10. Can't say more because i for real don't know what to say :DDD
Anygays, have a good life besties and don't forget to stream your fav artists :>>>

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