Overview of Love Alarm S1
‘Love Alarm’ is a South Korean streaming television series starring Kim So-hyun, Jung Ga-ram, and Song Kang in lead roles. The drama is a modification of the Daum webtoon of the same name written by a South Korean author, Chon Kye-young.
The storyline of the drama is the normal life of a high school girl, Kim Jo-jo (Kim So-hyun) upturned when she finds herself in a love triangle between Lee Hye-yeong (Jung Ga-ram) and the stylish model Hwang Sun-oh (Song Kang) through a mobile application named Love Alarm.
Mobile applications have significantly transformed each aspect of human lives. The drama portrays a reality where people use a love based application and fall in love. The thought-provoking plot, visuals, and characters keep you on the edge of your seat.
Profile
- Drama: Love Alarm
- Director: Lee Na-jung
- Writers: Seo Bo-ra, Lee Ah-yeon
- Network: Netflix
- Episodes: 8
- Release Date: August 22, 2019 – March 12, 2021
- Language: Korean
- Country: South Korea
Cast
Main
- Kim So-hyun as Kim Jo-jo
- Jung Ga-ram as Lee Hye-yeong
- Song Kang as Hwang Sun-oh
Supporting
- Ji Hye-ra as Kim Jang-go
- Shin Seung-ho as Jang Il-sik
- Go Min-si as Park Gul-mi
- Lee Jae-eung as Cheon Duk-gu
- Song Seon-mi as Jeong Mi-mi
- Song Geon-hee as Marx
- Kim Si-eun as Lee Yuk-jo
- Jo Yoo-jung as Mon Sun
Synopsis
Kim Jo-jo (Kim So-hyun) is an orphan, a cheerful high school student who lives with her cousin Park Gool-mi (Go Min-si) and maternal aunt (Park Sung-yun). She was forced to work at her family’s convenience store during the school holidays so as to help pay for her room and school expenses.
Later, she eventually meets Hwang Sun-oh (Song Kang), a new student who arrives at her school. This handsome guy is a former magazine model and grew up as an only child in a rich family of unloving parents. Sun-oh’s mother is a famous actress Jeong Mi-mi (Song Seon-mi) who is far away from her son and Sun-oh has mother-like affection towards his home’s housekeeper lady and her son Lee Hye-yeong (Jung Ga-ram). Hwang Sun-oh and Lee Hye-yeong grew up together and they take care of each other and feel an enduring bond between them.
The story goes tangled with the introduction of a mobile application named Love Alarm, which measures love interests within a particular radius and if someone steps within your circle, the phone pings to inform someone nearby has a romantic affection towards you.
Hwang Sun-ho’s love alarm quickly goes off with a horde of hearts, but he falls for Jo-jo, who doesn’t ring anyone’s alarm and she doesn’t even have the app on her phone. One day, Sun-oh stalks Jo-jo for a whole day and tells her to install Love Alarm on her phone and eventually invites her into an alleyway and kisses her.
Kim Jo-jo never had romantic feelings towards anyone. However, she seems to be attracted to Hwang Sun-oh. The app is somehow responsible for bringing Kim Jo-jo and Hwang Sun-oh together to form a lovely couple. Her Love Alarm on her cell phone goes off when she’s around Sun-oh who is quite driven in his pursuit of her. When this relationship is revealed, it gives rise to bags of gossip in their school.
Sun-oh suspects that Hye-yeong also likes Jo-jo whereas Hye-yeong also had feelings towards Jo-jo but he hid his feelings for quite a long time once he realizes his friend Hwang Sun-oh also likes her. Following an accident, Sun-oh’s parents hid him from Jo-jo.
Jo-jo’s friend Cheon Duk-gu (Lee Jae-eung) gives her the shield to turn off the app, who is the man behind this innovative application. Jo-jo uses the shield to break up with Sun-oh, telling him that she no longer has affection for him.
The drama occurs over two timelines, one during the school days, and the other four years later. Four years after the initial launch of the Love Alarm application, Love Alarm has got a 2.0 update that will predict how users’ feelings will develop towards their loved ones or give projections of who they will fall in love with. The presentation also officially gives some implications on the hidden developer of the app.
While at the Love Alarm 2.0 televised presentation, Jo-jo, Sun-oh and Hye-yeong accidentally meet at the Love Alarm range outside of the presentation hall. Both still have feelings for Jo-jo, but while Hye-yeong tries to court her without Love Alarm, Sun-oh was with his new girlfriend Yook-ji (Kim Si-eun) with a negative emotional reaction to being dumped.
Theme
While there is a glimpse of romance and a love triangle in the drama, it mainly focuses on a life lesson about to what extent social media affects human lives. People put all their trust into a love-matching app, which reflects how we all depend on the validation of social media.
In an age of dating apps and algorithms that determine who you love, this K-drama portrays a pop culture nerve in which we are becoming less connected than ever before. The swipe-left or swipe-right addiction of this age degrades the valuable connection with loved ones.
‘Love Alarm’ establishes its significance in a world where an instinctive app can determine who you love, resulting in behavioural barriers to our emotional well-being and decision-making skills.
The series dealt with the fact that love has become too reliant on that buzzing sound rather than expressing real emotion through words. Nowadays, the ding sound has become the expression of one’s feelings.
Interesting Facts about Love Alarm S1
- Modified from a webtoon of the same name, ‘Love Alarm’.
- One of the male roles was originally set for the Canadian actor based in South Korea Ahn Hyo-seop, but he turned down the role due to other commitments.
- The drama team collaborated with app development and sound designers to create an actual love alarm application for the K-drama ‘Love Alarm’ so that the drama feels more realistic.
FAQs
- What is the inspiration behind the K-drama ‘Love Alarm’?
The drama is inspired by a webtoon of the same name by a South Korean author, Chon Kye-young. - What is the genre of ‘Love Alarm’?
The genre of the drama is Romance. - Who are the main characters of the Korean drama ‘Love Alarm’?
The lead characters are Kim Jo-jo (Kim So-hyun), Lee Hye-yeong (Jung Ga-ram), and Hwang Sun-oh (Song Kang). - What are the Instagram ID’s of the lead actors?
wow_kimsohyun is the Instagram ID of Kim So-hyun and rram_iiii is the Instagram ID of Jung Ga-ram.
