First of all, if you are an Indian who watches Korean Dramas dubbed in English, here’s good and bad news for you.
Castaway Diva is available in English (audio) but only till the 4th episode. From episode 5, only English subtitles are available. Audio switches back to original, that is Korean. But.. Here’s my suggestion – for castaway diva, go with Korean audio and English subtitles from episode 01. I enjoyed watching a few k-dramas in English, but did not enjoy the translated version of this series. Now, coming back to the review – here you go…
I would like to break down Castaway Diva’s story into two parts –
- Seo Mok-ha and Jung Ki-ho’s love story
- Seo Mok-ha’s dream of meeting and becoming like her idol, singer Yoon Ran-joo
When the series began, both of these storylines were beautifully intertwined. There was a reason, and a valid reason why Seo Mok-ha looks up to Yoon Ran-joo. This diva was Mok-ha’s escape plan. As the story moves forward, this is the track that starts annoying you the most.
The other storyline, if it had blossomed into a full-fledged plot, this series would have gone to the next level. Not because it was all about a love story but it also spoke about human connections that form when people share the suffering. Speaking of Ki-ho and Mok-ha, the domestic violence the two teenagers face and their strong will to escape is what brings them closer – not romantically but as humans as they understand the other person’s suffering – emotional, physical, and psychological.
The twist in their story is that the duo manages to escape. But as they say, the destiny had other plans and they get caught by Mok-ha’s father, the demon she has been running from. As the ferry reaches mid-sea, to escape one more time from her father, Mok-ha chooses the unknown and jumps into the sea. To put it into simple words, she chooses death over her father.
This plot gets interesting when we see Mok-ha stranded on an island, separated from Ki-ho. In the first few episodes, Mok-ha’s constant flashbacks tell us that she has not forgotten Ki-ho and is still looking for him. When stranded, he is in her thoughts and after the rescue, she actually goes to places looking for him. What has happened to her partner who made sure she escapes safely, even if that means he has to return to his father is a mystery to us.
In the recently released episodes, episode 7 and 8, Ki-ho is revealed to Mok-ha. He is none other than one of the two brothers who found her stranded on the island. In one of the episodes, we are also told that Bo-goel (the younger brother) has been undertaking cleaning of islands for years but after Mok-ho was found, he stopped doing that. This told her, long before it actually revealed, that Bo-goel is Ki-ho.
We still have 4 more episodes to go where the plot will now revolve around whether Ki-ho’s father manages to find him and the family who have successfully hid their identity for years. Boring, isn’t it? But what’s more frustrating is how they made Mok-ha’s obsession for Yoon Ran-joo the main plot of the story.
Let’s see how Castaway Diva ends but honestly, I have lost all the interest in the show. I patiently watched till the 8th episode as I wanted to see how they unfold Ki-ho’s mystery but honestly, it was neither a surprise nor a shock for the audience. To be honest, the characters too didn’t seem to be emotionally invested in each other after that whole ‘lost and found’ timepaas.
2 Comments