Is Season 2 already up? I noticed that people are digging up my old post on “Love Alarm.”
Here’s the link to my old post to save lurkers the trouble: Love Alarm: Eps 1 and 2 Last Impressions
I’m skipping Season 2. I only agreed to review this kdrama for my good friend @lovebangwon who asked me to predict who the female lead would end up with. So I watched the first two episodes of Season 1, and wrote my “First Impressions.”
I’m not psychic — although I did correctly guess Mr. Queen’s ending after the third episode. 😂 When I made a long-term prediction of the finale, I based it on what I know about current societal attitudes and cultural values. To me, Hyesung, the poor kid who worked at a korean barbecue restaurant, would end up with Jojo.
I gave three reasons:
One, SunOh is a douchebag. (Sorry, fangirls. You get nothing but the honest truth from me.) He crossed the line when he went after THE girl whom he knew was his best friend’s secret love. He broke a cardinal rule among “bros.”
Two, slow and steady wins the race. This kdrama is set up to be an underdog story.
Three, to use a phone app to determine who you love is the height of stupidity. Besides, the design of the Love Alarm app is flawed. Didn’t the designer himself fail? Wasn’t his love app used against him? His “crush” was alerted by the love app whenever he was around and she went into hiding. To me, that was a comical outcome but it was also a foreshadowing. It was telling me that any relationship that resulted from the app was going to be fatally flawed.
Given what I know about kdrama writers, the moral lesson of this story is that true feelings will trump any advanced technology.
That’s why I predicted that the heroine would ditch the Love Alarm app and just go with her heart (and hopefully her brains). She’d notice the guy who had been standing quietly beside her. The one below the radar of the Love Alarm. The one that wasn’t flashy, nor flashing any signal.
So…
Tell me whether I was wrong or right with my hunch. I don’t care either way since I don’t have a dog in this fight…errr…romance story. But I’d be happy to be proven wrong just to show you — once and for all — that I’m NOT psychic. 😈
I was so excited for season 2 but was left a bit disappointed after watching it. It seemed very disjointed and didn’t hold my attention like season 1.
I wasn’t surprised who she ended up with because as packmule3 said there was a moral to the story that they wanted to convey. But I really didn’t get any swoony feelings during season 2 with the interaction between JJ and HY like from season 1 between JJ and SO. And in season 2,SO spent most of his time whining,brooding and yelling for explanations than trying to win her back.
Maybe if I had watched both seasons back to back, the story would flow better?
@packmule3, Thanks for helping me determine whether to watch this. It’s now way down on my very long list. I haven’tcommented recently because I was having some problems with my Viki subscription that I have finally corrected. I’m playing catch up on multiple sites and also getting sidetracked by Cho Seung-woo music videos(the man has pipes and has versatility inhis musicfromrocking Hedwig to Sweeney Todd and Dr. Zhivago) and interviews on YouTube and watching Stranger (Cho Seung-woo and supporting actor, Shin Hye-sun (can add this to my Shin Hye-sun festival), with fabulous Bae Doona) as I’ll as continuing myShin Hye-sun festval with Angel’s Last Mission(interesting to see how they fake her ballet dancing)-my reason for straightening out my Viki subscriptionas as well as watching their on air programming. WhenI started lurking on this wonderful blog and got up the nerve to comment, you,@packmule,suggested that some ways to choose K Dramas were to follow favorite actors and writers. Your advice has been priceless and has given me countless hoursvof pure joy. @packmule3, thankmyou,merci, gracias, danke, gamsamnahida, todah rabah….
I didn’t like the first season and I didn’t like the second one… The couple didn’t work at all. The actors really failed to deliver the romance. I was disapointed because I was rooting for them after the first season. I didn’t Jojo, she lied during all the first season and she just continued in the second one.
For sure I will watch season 2, because Kim So Hyun.
Even if Season one was a bit below average.
Anyway, I watched whole radio-romance, so, 6 episodes love alarm won’t scare me. 🙂
Like a typical K drama with romance at the center, couples have bad chemistry, nothing really happens, love triangle doesn’t work cause you can see the endgame from miles away so what’s the point of a triangle, and you really wish they grew a pair and hooked up 2 male leads cause they have the sparks and the foundation for the relationship.
I’ve grown tired of Drama Sue (overachiever poor/orphan girl who is obnoxious and average looking but has the hottest, richest boys inexplicably fall in love with her) and Drama Stu (hot rich boy with mommy/daddy issues who gets embarrassing all-girls-swoon montages and who falls in love with completely average and unlikable FL which is a proof that he’s a good guy deep down since he fell in love with someone like that). I also admit that I find Drama Stu’s more bearable cause they are usually better actors, really good-looking so ridiculous swooning is actually earned, and they never lead Drama Sue on while Drama Sue’s are always wishy-washy and playing with guys under pretense they cannot believe such hot stuff would really like/love them.
Watch The One instead. Much superior take on the similar premise.
@aquarius77 I feel like even though the feelings between JJ and HY weren’t as swoony and passion-driven like between JJ and SO, their relationship was more meaningful because they were able to develop and build their relationship. JJ slowly started to think of HY more and more, and they became dependable for each other. I feel like this was a much healthier relationship that actually worked. The drama sorta gave the theme of “love is a choice,” and that wrapped it up in a mostly satisfactory way.
Although the concept of the drama was pretty interesting and gave it a lot of potential, the writing was just not it. Really unfortunate… I wouldn’t recommend this drama, but if you’re really bored and want a short drama (that makes you think a little bit and judge it a lot), then this might be somewhat entertaining lol.
Hi @packmule3 as much as you wanna say you’re not psychic unfortunately on this one you’re correct again!
I didn’t like season 1 but season 2 for me is quite sweet. I was lost for words for Sun On since S01E01. Therefore i’m not really looking forward to it. But in the couple of scenes of S02 I was touched. Well maybe i’m just again being the minority.. lol.. I’m just watching this as a break from my on going drama list because my friend asked me to and I was surprised that I appreciate it..
It’s like the black mirror but in a more brighter vibes. The meaning of this drama i think that it’s just so wrong to depend our love life based on technology. But technology comes and goes, in the future there will always be the newest one. There are many possibilities in love life, and using algorithm to decide whom we love at is actually limiting those endless possibility. In the end human still has the power to choose.
I’m watching, it’s quick as drama. 6x45min.
For now, not better or worst than Season 1.
So, a bit boring but easy to watch. A good rest after sisyphus. 🙂
Main difference for now : Kim So Hyun.
She’s X times more pretty than in season 1, she jump off my screen.
Clean and beautiful images of her, many close-up.
And also, she’s perfect in this role, about acting.
So, I’m not dispointed because of this.
I finished episode 1 and 2.
I don’t know where the story go, I didn’t read comments.
And It’s annoying, on others websites, people throw spoilers.
Not fair, as most of the time, it’s for posting bad comments about the show.
I can’t read that, I dislike spoilers.
@valentine at first I thought that it was just one-sided with JJ and HY. I didn’t get the feeling they were in a relationship. More like he was friend-zoned. And then a few episodes in, she started calling herself his girlfriend and I was thinking when did that happen? I thought it was that he liked her, he was waiting for her and she was on the fence about him. But I do agree that in the end the relationship between JJ and HY was healthier than between JJ and SO. I was just disappointed that the relationship between HY and JJ wasn’t fleshed out like in season 1 with JJ and SO.
Is it just me getting it wrong or do others remember that in the first season Hye-Young was a creepy stalker who manipulated meetings with JJ. I didn’t finish the second season because I’d heard what the outcome was to be but in the episodes I watched he was at it again playing the sad face when he needed her to do what he wanted,I couldnt imagine a lifetime being married to him because it would be mentally draining. That’s not to say SO would be a better match either, he would need to fix his family relationships first or his wife would never be comfortable. I think JJ had a third option and that was to say no to both of them and build her own life first, you can do it without a man beside you. I would like to say something about second male leads who have known the FL for a long time but never mentioned their feelings until a new man appears on the scene, then it’s all heartbreak and tears. The most recent of course was True Beauty where we know the 2nd ML was beside the FL for two years but only confessed when the ML reappeared, in a Thai drama that I watched recently the same has happened, while the 2nd ML has been a friend of the FL for years, it wasn’t until he watched her start to enjoy life and come out of her shell with the ML that he decided it was the time for tears and confessions. UGH
I’m currently on variety show binge-watch, except for Vincenzo I’m not really watching ongoing drama. Lucky for me Love Alarm Season 1 was two years ago so I don’t have a strong feelings on who Jojo should end up with.
Just a note all the trailer, poster, and teaser for Love Alarm 2 is not very subtle in telling us that Jung Ga-ram (Hye-young) is the main lead as you predicted correctly packmule LOL
Although I usually avoid high school romance k-dramas (True Beauty being the only prior exception), I was drawn to this drama for two reasons: it had a Black Mirror vibe, and it offered relatively short episodes and a run of only 14 episodes. I watched it in its entirety over the last several days because I was looking for something light and simple to watch while suffering from a migraine, etc. I’ve also taken to watching simpler k-dramas recently because I like to diagram their plots and this plot looked to be simple because it was going to be another Cinderella (poor girl meets rich prince) story.
Love Alarm was a quick watch but it wasn’t light because Kim Jo-Jo’s origin story–and the thing she runs from for most of her life–is the mass suicide of her family, which she managed to escape from as a child. It is also a cautionary tale against technology (the Love Alarm app itself triggers a mass suicide of people who it deems are unlovable).
I am not here to pan this show but here are some of its shortcomings:
• the lack of romantic spark between the FL and the MLs (although, I suppose, that reinforces the idea of choosing to love someone vs. being destined to love them or having immediate lust for them);
• never fully explaining why her parents killed themselves and tried to kill her;
• why Jo-Jo was in such debt to her aunt;
• the changing/incomplete explanation of why Jo-Jo dumped Sun-Oh in the first place (was it because he was “too heavy” for her to carry on her journey in life as the final episode implies; or was it noble idiocy–she thought she would weigh him down with her tragic history; or was it because she thought his rich and snobby parents would never accept her—or was it all these things?);
• the sudden introduction of Hye-yeong’s father being a murderer in Season 2, episode 2, which took up a lot of unnecessary time (except, perhaps, to show that he had that in common with Jo-Jo? and to offer some nice visuals with the walk in the prison tunnel and down the prison hallway);
It also had the kind of inconsistencies that drive me crazy in k-dramas–e.g., how a kid who couldn’t afford school lunch could afford a cell phone and ice skating, why someone who was hated by her aunt and cousin would continue to live with them if she had a job, etc.
What I want to remark on instead is the craft behind it, especially for what was supposed to be just another Netflix teen k-drama. It’s sometimes easy to forget how much work goes into any TV show, but this one had a few extra, unexpected things:
• The OST was good and appropriately melancholy. I swore I was hearing Cat Stevens when the song, “In My Mind” (by Hodge, it turns out) was playing. [Here’s the OST for LA2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn6tqOlKkx0 ].
• Many scenes, especially in Season Two, looked like paintings, using beautiful settings and stunning lighting. For example: The lighting where Sun-Oh’s mother comes into the dining room at night late in Episode 2(5) looked like an Edward Hopper painting. Another, later scene in that dining room, where the camera pans back to show her alone at the table, is reminiscent of the long table scene in Citizen Kane. And the scenes incorporating cherry blossoms/trees had a dreamy, pink-tinged glow.
• The artful overlap/fading in and out of past and present scenes in the high school halls, and in the tree-lined sidewalk where Jo-Jo finally says good-bye to SO.
• And the illustrations in The Ringing World, drawn by real-life artist Yuribi (https://www.instagram.com/yuri_b612/ ).
Finally, I have to say I appreciated seeing a k-drama where the FL ended up with the SML. I know some would argue that he was always destined to be the ML but in a lot of k-dramas I’ve watched over the last year and a half, the first kiss usually seems to mark the “partner for life.” I’m glad she chose the hard-working young man vs. the rich, lazy, whiny one.
This wasn’t the best k-drama I’ve ever watched or even watched this year, but I did appreciate it more than I thought I would and the final episode, where Jo-Jo literally embraces her past, brought me to tears—so it had more of an emotional pull than I imagined it could when I first started to watch it as light entertainment.
Thank you @BethB,Will put this on my watch list. I do appreciate the work that is put into these dramas and the creative sparks that we find in them. These are some of the joys if k dramas. It’s the seredipity that is not usually found in American series. K Dramas, as mass media,find ways to mix in art, music, dance, literary references for all. And there is a lot of meta stuff. When you think ofvthe sheer output of these dramas, it’s a wonder how put so much creatibity into them. My one real critique is that I think cast and crew have terrible working conditions-working in bitter cold or debilitating heat and through very long hours. When I first started watching these dramas I couldn’t help but noticethe condensation coming from the actors’ ouths@ sign of workingbin very cold conditions. And Idon’t theink their costumes were warm enough. I don’t think Korea has good labor laws, unions or health andvsafety regulations. And I wonder about whether there are child labor laws. I know that k pop stars sign contracts that seem to amount to voluntary servitude, where evety adpect of their lives are controlled by their companies. If they succeed and become major forces, it’s worth it-but that doesn’t go for most. I guess that’s one of the reasons for the high suicide figures. So,whild enjoying some of the wonderful work of K Drama and music, Ican’t help but worry about the toll this work takes on cast and crew. This week an actress in her fiftieswho was acadt membrr inMousedied “suddenly”. It was said she died if congestive heart failure. Did her work contribute to her death? We’ll probably never know. But she died too young.
Perhaps international fans should express concern for these poor working conditions, now that Korea is inthe spotlight.