Love Alarm

August 22, 2019

In a world where the Love Alarm app rings when someone within 10 metres likes you, high school student Kim Jo-jo (Kim So-hyun) navigates the new social reality it has created. Hwang Sun-oh (Song Kang) likes her. His best friend Lee Hye-yeong (Jung Ga-ram) also likes her.

August 22, 2019

The love triangle's geometry — Sun-oh's boldness, Hye-yeong's restraint, Jo-jo's uncertainty — established in full.

August 22, 2019

The high school exterior in Gangseo-gu establishes the world where the app's social consequences are most acute — every bell a potential confession or rejection.

August 22, 2019

Sun-oh's feelings for Jo-jo — genuine, uncomplicated, expressed with the certainty of someone whose app has never lied — versus the more complicated truth the drama is building toward.

August 22, 2019

The Banpo Bridge Han River sequences at night — the app's chime in the open air. The drama's most emotionally charged location.

August 22, 2019

Hye-yeong's decision to suppress his own feelings in service of his best friend's happiness — the drama's most agonising thread.

August 22, 2019

Jo-jo acquires a shield for her app — preventing it from ringing even if she feels something. The drama's most interesting technical premise.

August 22, 2019

The Season 1 finale. Netflix's first Korean original aimed squarely at Gen Z — a drama that used its app premise to examine how technology mediates emotional honesty.