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Love Alarm korean drama review
Completed
Love Alarm
7 people found this review helpful
by litravn
Oct 24, 2020
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 3.5
Story 4.5
Acting/Cast 4.0
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 3.0

Missed Potential and Bad Writing

Story - This drama's concept is so intriguing and could have left an impact if it wasn't for the direction they took it. The idea of an app being used to confess feelings and out LGBT+ people is far more interesting and impactful than the boring 3-way relationship they tried to push to viewers. Kim JoJo and Hwang Sun Oh have almost no chemistry and it often made me question why they were even interested in each other to begin with. Kim JoJo and Lee Hye Yeong had even less chemistry, so his jealousy held no merit. However, if you were to look at this in the perspective of an LGBT+ person, Hwang Sun Oh and Lee Hye Yeong had all the makings to turn this into a coming of age/feel good bl drama. The jealousy and almost possessiveness within their relationship dynamic made it hard to not take note of possible homosexual undertones and could only serve as a reminder of the plot that could have been. The heterosexual lens of the series is ultimately what made this story a miss for me.

Acting/Cast - Song Kang did his best to play his part with what he was given, and since the character was bland, the acting came off as bland. The character had no dimension and was only portrayed as a bratty high school boy who "must get the girl", so the acting seemed to follow. I feel that if Song Kang wasn't so restrained within his boring one dimensional character, we'd be able to appreciate not only the character but the actor a bit more. I seemed to also feel the same energy from Kim So Hyun, but worse. I've seen her in other works and know that she can do better to bring her character to life, but somehow it felt like she just could not get into Kim JoJo's mind enough to portray her as she was at least written. Its a bit hard to blame So Hyun though, i'm convinced it was the lackluster writing of the characters to blame. Now I haven't seen Jung Ga Ram's acting before watching this drama, so I cant say whether he did just as good or bad as any other works. But I personally felt that he did the best within this series. His character is a guilable and kind high schooler who is often misunderstood as the "side kick" to his more popular friend, and he did an absolutely stellar job in that role. He made me feel sorry for his character even though his character was written as someone too bland to really feel sorry for. Maybe it was his great face, but it worked off really well in his favor in this piece and I really look forward to whatever else he appears in next.

Music - I felt that the music of this series was better quality than anything else. It drew my attention even though it mixed with the scenes quiet well. My ears enjoyed this drama far more than my eyes had...

Rewatch Value - I feel that in a few years, if i came across this drama again, i'd watch it not because i liked it before; but i'd ultimately rewatch it simply because i'd completely forgotten what it was about.

Overall - This drama is far from perfect. A lot of unnecessary angst, extreme heterosexual nonsense, and poor writing was put into this. But if you want something new to watch after having already watched everything else that was already interesting, you /might/ find this interesting. However, I don't find it to be a drama you'd find hard to get over after you finish it.
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