toastedskin
This review may contain spoilers
Drama not what I expected... and that's not a good thing
When you watch the trailer, or even read the title "Castaway Diva" - you expect a drama about a plucky and talented teen girl dreaming of stardom who gets crash landed on a deserted island. You expect to see her adjust to modern life after being rescued and all the ups and downs that come with that.
Unfortunately, that is not at all what we get.
Mokha's story is sadly placed on the backburner completely in favor of Kiho and Ranjoo. She is nothing but a background character. We get hardly anything about Mokha "adjusting" to life off the island. She seems to do miraculously well, despite having only a 10th grade education and being emotionally stunted at age 15. She is able to essentially become Ranjoo's manager immediately (again, despite having nothing but a middle school education) and seems to have no problem with modern technology. If she has trauma from the experience (which, frankly, she SHOULD) this isn't shown to us and plays no part in the story. After being alone on an island, she should be a little quirky and odd and unable to interact with other people well, but she has absolutely no problem whatsoever. I was looking forward to seeing all of those things portrayed on this drama but we got none of it.
So let's talk about what we did see.
The drama really wanted us to question, "Which brother is Kiho!?" but it was pretty obvious from the start. It also got pretty convoluted in the explanation of a certain brother losing his memory and not knowing about them changing their identities and so on. I was also so frustrated by their father. Of course, that is the point. But good god, it dragged on.
A positive note on this - the found family aspect with their step dad was magical. Truly, the greatest dad in kdrama award goes to him! What an absolute gem. We love to see it.
The other thing we saw - Yoo Ranjoo and company, which was arguably the worst part of this drama. No aspect of her story was interesting to me and there was absolutely NO resolution. I'm not sure if we are meant to view the CEO as a villain or if he was meant to be redeemed, because they didn't go 100% on either end. Especially the storyline at the end of them finding the receipt of album purchases (I won't get too into it), he gives us some complete bologna excuse that has no evidence or backing and we're just supposed to be like "Oh, OKAY!" and it is never brought up again.
All in all, the drama wasn't BAD. It was enjoyable for the most part. I just can't shake that this drama was not advertised correctly and that hindered my enjoyment tremendously. In fact, anything that was supposed to make this drama unique wasn't even there, and instead was just cliche.
Unfortunately, that is not at all what we get.
Mokha's story is sadly placed on the backburner completely in favor of Kiho and Ranjoo. She is nothing but a background character. We get hardly anything about Mokha "adjusting" to life off the island. She seems to do miraculously well, despite having only a 10th grade education and being emotionally stunted at age 15. She is able to essentially become Ranjoo's manager immediately (again, despite having nothing but a middle school education) and seems to have no problem with modern technology. If she has trauma from the experience (which, frankly, she SHOULD) this isn't shown to us and plays no part in the story. After being alone on an island, she should be a little quirky and odd and unable to interact with other people well, but she has absolutely no problem whatsoever. I was looking forward to seeing all of those things portrayed on this drama but we got none of it.
So let's talk about what we did see.
The drama really wanted us to question, "Which brother is Kiho!?" but it was pretty obvious from the start. It also got pretty convoluted in the explanation of a certain brother losing his memory and not knowing about them changing their identities and so on. I was also so frustrated by their father. Of course, that is the point. But good god, it dragged on.
A positive note on this - the found family aspect with their step dad was magical. Truly, the greatest dad in kdrama award goes to him! What an absolute gem. We love to see it.
The other thing we saw - Yoo Ranjoo and company, which was arguably the worst part of this drama. No aspect of her story was interesting to me and there was absolutely NO resolution. I'm not sure if we are meant to view the CEO as a villain or if he was meant to be redeemed, because they didn't go 100% on either end. Especially the storyline at the end of them finding the receipt of album purchases (I won't get too into it), he gives us some complete bologna excuse that has no evidence or backing and we're just supposed to be like "Oh, OKAY!" and it is never brought up again.
All in all, the drama wasn't BAD. It was enjoyable for the most part. I just can't shake that this drama was not advertised correctly and that hindered my enjoyment tremendously. In fact, anything that was supposed to make this drama unique wasn't even there, and instead was just cliche.
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