Love Alarm

Male Lead: Song Kang
Female Lead: Kim So Hyun
Secondary Lead: Jung Ga Ram
Also Starring: Go Min Si, Z Hera, Shin Seung Ho, Lee Jae Eung, Song Seon Mi, Song Geon Hee, Kim Young Ok, Cho Deok Hoe
Year Released: 2019
Number of Episodes: 8
Genre: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Country: Korea
Where I Watched It: Netflix
Recommended By: Nobody
Watched It For: –

In a world where an app alerts people if someone in the vicinity likes them, Kim Jojo experiences young love while coping with personal adversities.

Love Alarm is about an app that alerts the user when someone that likes them is within like 10 meters of them and it follows our main lead, Kim Jo Jo, a young woman who lives with her Aunt and cousin and works multiple part-time jobs to support herself. She came to live with her Aunt when her Mom died and left Kim Jo Jo, an orphan. Kim Jo Jo hasn’t had an easy life, she’s only known grief and unhappiness as her family life isn’t ideal. Her Aunt and cousin remind her constantly that she is mooching off of them, even though she works hard both at school and at work to support herself and works as a free laborer for the Aunt’s convenience store, but they don’t recognize much outside of themselves and their lives and that pissed me off a lot.

When the show first starts, we meet Kim Jo Jo but we also meet Hwang Sun Oh and Lee Hye Yeong, two childhood friends who are reunited when Sun Oh returns to Korea after being abroad. The two boys are best friends and Hwang Sun Oh comes home, ready to pick up his friendship with Hye Yeong again but while he was away, Hye Yeong has gotten himself a part-time job and is pretty busy. The two boys are close but the time apart has put some distance between them and Sun Oh doesn’t like it. While trying to run Hye Yeong down, Sun Oh sees the girl who has captured Hye Yeong’s attention. Kim Jo Jo. They work together at a Korean BBQ restaurant and Sun Oh follows Hye Yeong, who follows Kim Jo Jo to make sure that she gets to her bus stop safely. It is quite obvious that Hye Yeong has a crush on Kim Jo Jo and Sun Oh sees that while tailing his friend but as the show progresses, you see Sun Oh still go after Kim Jo Jo, much to Hye Yeong’s chagrin.

So I guess Netflix released only 8 episodes of this show, with the ending 8 episodes to follow sometime soon. With the pandemic, I’m not sure what happened to the release date for the second part but I hope we get to see where everyone ends up because I need some closure here.

This part was all about Kim Jo Jo and Sun Oh and while I did enjoy getting to know the both of them better, at the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but remember every time that Sun Oh and Kim Jo Jo kissed or hugged or fell a little more in love with each other, that Sun Oh did his best friend dirty. I’m not a big fan of friends sliding into the DM’s of girls or boys that their best friend likes so I wasn’t a big fan of the way that both Kim Jo Jo and Hwang Sun Oh got together.

It also took me a little bit to connect with Sun Oh’s character because he plays a very reserved but off putting character but the more you get to know him, the more you understand why he is the way that he is and what drives him to be the person that he is. There were sweet moments between Kim Jo Jo and Hwang Sun Oh but I couldn’t help but look forward to seeing what kind of relationship can blossom between Hye Yeong and Kim Jo Jo.

One of the main reasons that I adore Korean Dramas is that each show is 16 episodes and that’s it. There’s no dragging out romances and storylines for years and years and years. You get 16 episodes of a story that builds over those episodes and then you get a solid ending. We don’t get that here. This show ends on a cliff hanger and I wasn’t a big fan of that. I would have preferred to have waited to see all of the episodes together but by the time I realized that there were only 8 episodes of this show, I was on episode 6 so it was too late to stop.

I will say that the first 8 episodes are interesting and enjoyable but I wanted more Hye Yeong and I didn’t think we got nearly enough of him so I’m crossing my fingers that it’s a different story in the second season. I would definitely recommend this if you’re looking for a cute romance but beware of the cliff hanger and if you could, I’d wait until both seasons release to watch it all in one go. Still, I’m glad that I watched it and even though I spent a good chunk of the story frustrated, it’s still good stuff.

Listen to the OST

Final Rating

3.75 out of 5