MaryMeKpop

Another year means another Park Eun-bin drama which means another drama added onto my watchlist. Given that Park Eun-bin is one of my favorite actresses, she usually has one drama out a year and I have this thing where I watch that drama. It started with ‘Operation Proposal’ all the way to ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ and now ‘Castaway Diva’ which just recently premiered this past weekend. ‘Castaway Diva’ centers around Seo Mok-ha (Park Eun-bin) who was stranded on a deserted island for 15 years before finally being discovered. She dreamt of meeting her idol, Yoon Ran-joo (Kim Hyo-jin), ever since she was in middle school and she encounters Kang Bo-geol (Chae Jong-hyeop) and Kang Woo-hak (Cha Hak-yeon/N) after they discover her on the island.

After finishing the first two episodes, I couldn’t quite pinpoint how I felt about the drama, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but also isn’t really a positive thing either. I’ll admit that I didn’t enjoy the drama as much as I wanted to, but I’ll still watch the show just to see what happens and how things unfold. The first episode focused on the childhood portion of Seok Mok-ha and her good friend, Jung Ki-ho, and their special friendship with each other. He helped her move closer to her dreams of meeting Ran-joo when they were in middle school. They also found a home in each other after living in abusive households with their dads. They were young and naive and didn’t know a whole lot about the world but they had each other. So the first episode focused on their friendship and laid out the groundwork for how Mok-ha ended up on the deserted island and how she was eventually discovered in episode 2.

I found the first episode to be just a little too slow for my liking. Something that ‘Castaway Diva’ did with its first two episodes was be pretty descriptive. It showed us every little single thing and detail to prove its point or to show us how something happened and while I appreciate the details and context, it was a bit distracting. It’s funny because I’m usually all for this and I like it when a drama gives us the background on our characters. But in this case, I found this aspect to be a bit too jarring in ‘Castaway Diva.’ There were some moments in both episodes where I wanted the drama to speed things up a little bit.

The drama went all out in its first two episodes, but I think it failed to capture perhaps the most important part of the entire story, which was the impact that Ran-joo had on Mok-ha’s life. Mok-ha was persuaded to run away because she wanted to get away from her abusive and toxic dad, even if it was just for a day. But she also wanted to run away because she had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet her favorite celebrity, Ran-joo. She gambled on this chance to meet Ran-joo so she ran away on the ferry with Ki-ho to achieve that dream. Because of this, I was expecting a bit more context on why Ran-joo was so important to Mok-ha and why Mok-ha loved Ran-joo so much. I’m assuming it’s because Ran-joo’s music inspired Mok-ha and served as a beam of light and hope for her during a time of turmoil and darkness in her life. We know Mok-ha loves Ran-joo and she still does 15 years later when Mok-ha is rescued. Her love for Ran-joo hasn’t changed. But why does she love Ran-joo so much and how did Ran-joo change her life? In order for me to get behind the whole premise, the drama could have done a better job in selling me on this point first.

Even with that said, the drama was still pretty and nice to look at and there are some interesting sub-plots that the show plans on diving into. One of those being Ki-ho and his whereabouts. It seems as if the drama plans on keeping his identity and whereabouts a secret and will play into the whole mystery surrounding his disappearance. We already saw the drama doing that in its second episode where they proposed the idea of either Woo-hak or Bo-geol being Ki-ho. While I already have my thoughts and assumptions about who the real Ki-ho is (PSTTT, I think it’s Bo-geol), it seems as if the drama will extend this sub-plot for a little longer.

Overall, ‘Castaway Diva’ showed plenty of potential to be even more of an exciting drama. The directing and cinematography was stunning and our cast members matched their characters pretty well. There’s hope for the drama to be even better and hopefully it arrives in the following episodes.