Castaway Diva (2023)

Enchanting Echoes: A Love Letter to Park Eun-Bin's Voice in 'Castaway Diva

I have fallen deeply in love with Park Eun-Bin's voice in "Castaway Diva." The series, while not necessarily emphasizing romance prominently, has left an indelible mark on me, and I truly believe that no amount of kissing scenes can surpass the sheer brilliance of her voice. Throughout the entire series, I found myself experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions—crying, feeling sad, and getting excited in equal measure.

If there were a voting system in place, I would wholeheartedly cast my vote for "Castaway Diva" as a top K-drama for 2023. Park Eun-Bin's performance, coupled with the overall emotional depth of the series, has truly resonated with me. It's not just about the romantic elements; rather, it's the raw and authentic portrayal of emotions that has left a lasting impact.

Sharing my sentiments about the series and Park Eun-Bin's exceptional voice is something I am eager to do. Even without a formal voting system, expressing our appreciation for such outstanding performances is essential. Whether through social media or online forums, discussing and recommending "Castaway Diva" can potentially connect me with like-minded viewers who share a similar passion for quality storytelling and remarkable acting.

In conclusion, I wholeheartedly endorse "Castaway Diva" as a top K-drama for 2023, and I encourage others to explore this captivating series, not just for its romantic aspects but for the rich emotional tapestry it weaves, brought to life by the incredible talent of Park Eun-Bin.

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WHat a story.

Perfect story to tell and perfect cast to act. Love their chemistry. A always, the FL is the best to portray any character she was in. Love her in the series "Hello my Twenties". she is just amazing. Nothing bad to stay. A must-watch series.

This series makes me smile in every episode. Love the way the writers shows that even in a bad situation, you can do it as long as you want it and supported by your loved ones. Love also the way the manage to show the love and concern of the ML. He is truly a green flag. knows how to show his love. love his smile..

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Discovering True Charm: Unveiling the Beauty of Castaway Diva in its Entirety

I initially approached Castaway Diva with skepticism, but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The child actors stole the show from the beginning, showcasing incredible talent that set the tone for the entire drama. The emotional depth they portrayed was truly remarkable.

The overall cast delivered commendable performances, with no weak links. The family dynamic was portrayed with genuine chemistry, and the joy expressed, especially by the male lead, was palpable. His portrayal of unbridled joy was a rare gem in the world of acting. I have yet to have seen an actor portray joy instead of happiness.

The character development was the strong point in the drama. Each character, including supporting roles, was well-written and realistic. The dialogue and relationship dynamics were skillfully crafted, adding authenticity to the storyline.

The second male lead played a pivotal role in enhancing the overall dynamics of the main cast. His character was expertly developed and contributed significantly to the narrative.

However, the drama had its flaws. The "who is Kiho" mystery plot felt poorly executed and dragged on for a couple of episodes. The romance trope, while fitting well, was underdeveloped, leaving viewers yearning for more scenes to judge the main leads' chemistry.

The ending left much to be desired. Although Mokha's success was well-portrayed, several loose ends were left untied. The resolution for the second male lead's unconfessed feelings and the incomplete dynamic between other characters left viewers wanting more. The lack of conflict resolution between Ranjoo and Seojoon was also disappointing. A lot of scenes towards the end were almost filler scenes. It was obvious that character development was supposed to be happening in the ending but it wasn't being portrayed at all making them basically filler scenes. I would have also loved to see maybe a scene or two of Mokha and Morae after Mokha's success they were starting to grow a relationship after the whole switching songs debacle, an award show scene would've been great.

Despite the dissatisfaction with the ending, the drama's strength lies in its exceptionally well-written characters and their dynamics. As a fan of dramas with strong character portrayals, my bias compels me to give Castaway Diva a higher rating than it might deserve. It's a rollercoaster of emotions that, despite its flaws, manages to captivate with its character-driven narrative.

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Their relationship / friendship is the main plot, but their romance is a subplot

The relationship of the FL and ML was the main story, but their romance was not part of the main story The FL and ML sold the romance, but the writing of it felt a bit forced , like the writer originally wrote it with no romance, but was forced to add a romantic relationship because they were told to do so. (You'll see what I mean if you watch it).

Basically, if you're wanting a romance, this is not it. You could have replaced the romance with a deep friendship and the story would have been exactly the same. Since I went into this drama expecting a romance (because it's labeled as such) I was left disappointed with this element of the story, which is why I rated it 9 instead of 10.

However, if you're wanting a fun, entertaining, and sometimes suspenseful story about two people who are fated to be in each other's lives as good, loving friends, this is definitely the show for you.

Things that are fantastic about this drama: the music, the child actors (THEY WERE AMAZING!!), the overall message and how the story was both fantastical and realistic, and the adult leads (FL and ML) both separately in their own stories and together as deep, close friends.

The writing and direction were also very good.

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PEB and fellow actors make it through despite a contrived screenplay

First, I would like to apologize if I will hurt the feelings of some Park Eun-bin's fans. Basically, I am a PEB's fan too, but a kind of weird fan who allows himself to be critical about the productions where she leads in. Second, as concerns "Castaway Diva", I want to say from the start that my criticisms are not concerning the acting but the screenplay. PEB is sincere and expressive in her acting as expected, and the other actors are sincere too, but the screenplay is contrived and does not provide a sound basis for an outstanding performance. The spectator hardly knows what is the main direction, the main issue this series is aimed to, so many things are mixed up.
Apparently the main message the series intends to convey is that one must always stay focused and optimistic in order to attain one's goals. The message is right but does one really need all this overcomplicated and overemotional story to express such a straightforward idea? In order to deliver a positive message there is no need for big effects like being stranded on a deserted island, pursuing an idol career, or facing a psychopath. Positive thinking can also be transmitted by a drama about problems of ordinary people in ordinary life.
The series has also the ambition of addressing domestic violence. It is a very important societal issue and it is worth bringing it to the large audience. But does one need all this musical and romantic packaging to deal with this issue, is the improbable story of Seo Mokha a proper ground for that? Or does the caricaturally bad character as that of the pathological father provide the necessary sobriety and authenticity? I don't think so.
Another potentially interesting aspect of the series is the re-integration of a person who has been isolated for a long time. The struggle of such a person to regain a place in the society may be a very good story line. But the story has to sound true and not made-up. Is pursuing the ambition to become a pop star actually convincing? Is falling from a ferry and having been stranded on an deserted island compelling? Is an ex-fan and fallen-idol relationship appealing? For young people following today's pop culture, maybe. For me, from the elder generation, it is not.
In fact, in my opinion, the screenplay of "Diva" is not following a consistent scheme but simply pulls on all possible strings, including a story of a come-back of an idol, family pathologies, singing of the star actress, romance, in order to get the strongest emotional impact possible and to attract the widest audience possible. The series is overloaded with melodramatic situations, the weakest part being the love triangle, the hidden identities and the revengeful father. Nevertheless, PEB and her fellow actors were able to transform this mere entertainment product into a touching and audience gathering show.
I willingly admit that among the nowadays films and series, where the most popular are thrillers, horrors, violent crime or war stories, heartwarming and positive series like "Diva" are truly needed. However, I think that PEB, at this stage of her career, desserves better scripts or simply another type of scripts. She said in an interview that she would like to try different genres of films. I hope that her next production will not be a romantic comedy, but rather a psychological drama. I would like something more subtle, contemplative, introspective, even melancholic, without any excessive melodramatic effects.

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Directionless plot, slow, use of tropes and the classic ignorance of how a teen behaves

Before starting this drama I was already skeptical about the deserted island setting. I feel it's something that can't really work much as a plot device if the story is set in modern times, and this show didn't prove me wrong.
Mostly we have to take this whole story as pure fantasy, but even in the constraints of plausibility in a fantastical world, here there are things that simply don't work and that are just left as plotholes and the rest is just a collection of unrealistic situations that will make you facepalm very hard or that you'll have to brush off to move on with the story.

I find with this series there is a lack of a focus in the plot. Sure, we have a FL and the plot seems to follow her from the start mostly, only that it gets sidetracked multiple times along the way and ultimately feels like her story line didn't progress much nor it made much the impact it could have. The abusive father of ML is the only constant linear plot line in this show, even though if still with a dose of unrealistic-ness and quite dragged.

The start was good and overall it was so much more interesting and I was more invested in the story line in the beginning. I think this is mostly as well because I thought the young actors did such a better job at the characters than the older ones. I don't understand why it's a constant issue that if someone older plays like they're stuck in their teen years mentally they have to do some weird overacting that it's just immensely cringe. Don't they remember their teen years? This is becoming a new trope I absolutely despise.
What was the point of her being stuck in that island anyway? This is only used as a plot device in a couple of occasions as flashbacks and any other setting could have been used anyway. It's a small part of the plot and I don't think adds anything. She should be so much more mature precisely because of her life experiences in that island but as it's mentioned in the show itself, she's childish like that because she didn't continue her education.... excuse me what?

The love story in this show is quite anticlimactic and the "love triangle" if it can even be called that, it's unnecessary as always.
A lot of the plot points are just like that because the script said so, otherwise they make no sense, like Ki-ho hiding his identity to her knowing she's looking for him, like so much could have been avoided if he had told her straight away and told her the situation and to keep it secret. It's just so silly. Also he goes from that to then wanting her to be famous like all of a sudden he doesn't care anymore.

The biggest middle chunk of the show the attention is mostly on Ran Joo's character more than the FL, to the point the whole premise of her career as a singer is put to the side. At this point I lost most of the interest I still had for the story. Ran Joo's character is not bad but it's not great either and if I was supposed to feel sorry for her I didn't because her situation could be so much worse, especially when compared with the Kang family whose dynamics, by the way, were of the best of the show.

I think overall for a short drama it didn't have a clear idea of what it wanted to focus on, there were multiple subplots and the execution of them was not done in the best way, the story progressed in chunks of focusing on one thing or another what I get why they did it that way but it just added more to the unrealistc-ness of it all. Moreover, some of the characters would also keep changing from one side to the other what would do or undo the plot as it goes. The worst of all of this is that it makes you lose interest as it changes because most plot lines become very dragged as a result. Points for having so many story lines and characters at the same time and somehow still manage to make it boring.
There were a few conversations between characters that were engaging and I shared their sentiments but most of the others were very uninteresting and added nothing to the story or character development.
FL is cringe, ML is background character, couldn't care for Ran Joo, second ML (Woo Hak) has more screen time than the first and yet his personal story goes really nowhere (and he had more chemistry with FL too), and I have no idea why Lee Seo Joon is considered main character, he spent the series going in circles. Kang parents were great and I wish we got more of Mo Rae since she seemed somewhat interesting.

No more amnesia trope PLEASE. I'm so done with it, let's just leave it back in the past where it should remain. It was annoying at the time and it's even more annoying now.
This is also labelled as "comedy" here but I really don't know why, there are zero comedy moments unless people laughs at FL accent and "teen" attitude what it's actually insulting because it perpetuates this idea that certain accents/dialects mean the person is ignorant and dumb, she even somewhat drops it in the last episode, because now she's a *proper singer*... meh.

I debated giving this a 5 because I've seen worse and it had some nice moments, but writing this review and thinking about the series really stopped me. It is watchable if there is nothing else to watch and some of the songs were nice but I generally can't recommend. It doesn't know what it wants to be and manages to do everything half way in a dragged and boring way.

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Could be better but still great nonetheless

Story:
The story revolves around Seo Mok-Ha, a 31 year-old who's pursuing a singing career and just got stranded on a deserted island for 15 years. As she goes to Seoul and settles there, she faces many hurdles to reach her dreams. There are several main problems in the story, but as the story progresses, those problems become more and more intertwined.

The story shows the complicated nature of humans' interactions in which a lot of clashes between the main protagonist and other casts are shown. I personally love the relationships between Mok-Ha and Ran-Joo, her childhood idol and later becomes her mentor, as it shows that two people with different "ideology" can still be as close as they are. For me, it is the main highlight of the story. On the other side, she also has "familial" issues, especially regarding her love interest's family (Ki-ho's).

Surprisingly, even though the story seems to have two main plot lines, they're blended well. My main criticism is the lack of main protagonist's "character moments", whether they are about her and her love interest, her and rising fame, etc. Especially about her as "diva", unfortunately, we only get those at the end. This would be better as 16 episode series.

Cast:
Park Eun Bin can never cease to amaze me with her act. Her expression and mannerism brought Mok-Ha as a character to light. Also, as the "prodigy" diva of the series, she must ensure that her singing is up to standard and she delivered big time. It also helps that her smile is full of charm, so it perfectly fitted the cheerful nature of Mok-Ha.

Kim Hyo Jin's Yoon Ran-Joo was also great. Her acting as the once-loved-by many-but-have-fallen veteran diva was surely one of the hightlights of the story. Especially her complicated thought as someone that has been betrayed couple of times, she ensuresd that Ran-Joo doesn't come up as a shallow person.

Other casts also did well. Cha Hak Yeon did amazingly well as Woo Hak and the character was well-written. Chae Jong- Hyeop seemed to have the weaker performance amongst the main casts, but I'm pretty sure it must be because his character. The supporting casts also did tremendously well.

Special mention to the young actors of Mok Ha and Ki Ho, Lee Re and Moon Wo Jin. Their early presences, while short, was memorable. They did well to establish the bond that Mok Ha and Ki Ho had in the past.

Music:
As a story about diva, they must deliver well in this part and fortunately they did. The songs are great and easy to listen. Eun Bin's soft voice also match perfectly with all of the songs she sings. I've put them on my playlist.


All and all, the story is well presented, just a tad disappointment in my part regarding some things that seems to be missing. The acting is just almost perfect.

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what did it want to be?

I'll preface my review by stating the obvious, in the hopes that no one gets hateful, this is just my personal opinion. Please take it or leave it alone, agree or disagree, but please respect the opinions of others (and I'm kind of irritated that I even have to say this).

There was a lot to like about this show:
Acting. Everyone was really good. Park Eun Bin as Mok Ha was wonderful. I think there were certain mannerisms that we saw that she displayed in Extraordinary Attorney Woo and I think are just part of her DNA, because I've seen them in other shows of hers. However, they absolutely worked here. She was charming and likeable, driven, yet devoted to those she loved. All of the other actors were excellent as well. I especially loved the younger actors, they were the standouts for me. Also, Kim Joo Heon playing a morally gray character, and both Lee Seung Joon as Ki Ho's father and Lee Yoo Joon as Mok Ha's father were surprising. We are so used to seeing them in the role of good guys, their transformations were amazing.

Music. As you'd expect, the OST was wonderful. Eun Bin's voice is sublime. I could literally listen to her all day.

My problem came in with the writing and the way the story was put together. On the surface, or maybe because of the trailers, this was an original premise, with strong possibilities of feeling all the feels. My struggle was this drama couldn't decide if it wanted to be a romance, a drama, a comedy, light or dark. For me, the extremes were too great. I wasn't expecting it to be fluffy, but the darkness was too dark for the rest of the drama, and the flipping back and forth wasn't allowing me to flow with the story. I didn't feel that there was enough of her on the island (a whole episode would have been nice) and the whole thing just seemed too implausible - she was that close to civilization all that time? Then, her reintegration was just too easy. First of all, the voice is a muscle. She would have needed to get used to using her voice again. Add to that, her early life was just trauma. So, she's traumatized as a child and then has the trauma of having been on an island by herself for 15 years, but she comes home and there appear to be no after-effects, just that she's glad to be back home and she immediately gets back on the track of wanting to meet her idol. It would have been so much better if we'd been able to see/feel her struggles with reassimilating into society -- that would have really improved the flow and made it more realistic.

I'd say, if you've actually read this far and are wondering whether to give this show a try, you should, definitely. Just because I'm one of the few outlier people that didn't fall in love with it, you may (and probably will) have a different reaction to it.

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Regret watching this

Pros:
- soundtrack
- the strong love between the Kang parents and sons
- the strong love between the Kang brothers
- the kids escaping abuse
- the endearing and comedic moments with Woo-Hak
- 90% of the dialogue is foreshadowing, not just filler
- metaphors with the island
- extremely caring and selfless characters
- interesting concept for the plot

Cons
- the love triangle
- infinite plot holes:
- doesn't make sense that Ki-Ho's attempts to run away fail for months. not that expensive to buy a ticket and hide on a ferry to get away
- doesn't make sense why Ki-Ho and Mok-Ha didn't just hide on the boat
- they try to play it off that abuse was seen as more acceptable, but doesn't make any sense to have a guy beating a kid senseless in public, then chasing daughter like maniac, and no one does anything
- should have explained how the dad got on a boat that already left
- made no sense how she could have washed ashore some random remote island when they're so close to populated areas
- made no sense how all that trash ended up on the island, yet no boats or Ki-Ho could find her for 15 years
- can definitely still recognize people after only 15 years, especially your own sons
- the Kangs endangering Mok-Ha and Woo-Hak by not telling them there's a psychopath
- Bo-Geol is supposed to love Mok-Ha, yet literally causes his brother to fall in love with her
- doesn't make sense for Bo-Geol to pine over Mok-Ha for 15 years and then cruelly hide his identity, "protecting her" puts her in way more danger, if she resented him that would be an understandable excuse, but she clearly doesn't. no matter how good his intentions, he acts undeniably cruel
- Bo-Geol being adamant on concealing their identities and preventing Mok-Ha from getting famous, then out of nowhere changing his mind, stairway reveal was the worst scene in the show
- the childhood lovers trope feels out of place here, shouldn't romanticize two kids trying to escape abuse
- Mok-Ha's mannerisms feel out of place, no hate for autism, but living in isolation doesn't make you act autistic

For me, the cons outweighed the pros, so I regret watching this. I can even forgive some aspects, but overall I just can NOT recommend it. What would have made it good:
- cut any romantic feelings until the present day, don't romanticize kids running away from abuse
- cut the love triangle, make either Kiho's or WooHak's feelings platonic
- cut the secrets
- cut the amnesia trope
- add an episode towards the beginning showing her time on the island
- add an episode with her readapting to society to create more comedic moments
- fix at least some of the plot holes mentioned above

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Should have been 16 episodes but I will forgive them since they gave us a good ending.

Since the first episode, there hasn't been a moment that I have not been in love with this drama. I watched every single episode within hours of release which is a feat for me who likes to watch both of the week's episodes at once.

No character was twisted to fit the plot or their circumstances. Everyone lived to their wishes even the villains of the story didn't just serve the purpose of the villain but were their humans, from Mok-ha's father down to Ki-ho's.

My favorite part has to be the siblings. In all K-dramas with a love triangle, not a single "brother couple" was as beautiful as Wohak & Bogeol. Love isn't everything, sometimes some things are more important, and some confessions can be left unconfessed.

If you like picking flaws in dramas, I am sure you'll find a couple here and there. In my case, I can turn a blind eye to the unreal things as a favor to all the beautiful emotions they showed me. Great acting on everyone's part (besides a few very minor characters). I wished that Mok-ha's accent became a little lighter at some early point but it was inevitable given the short time the drama covers.

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A story about a young woman who dreamt of becoming a diva.

The idea of the story itself is very unique in my opinion. Though there are some illogical point (regarding her survival in the deserted island), but the whole visual is super great. And the story is not merely highlighting the romance between the main leads couple. But it showed us friendship, hope, resilience, and persistence.

The actors and actresses really did a great job in portraying their character. Park Eun Bin with her quirk, Chae Jong Hyeop with his talking eyes, Cha Hak Yeon with his wit, and Kim Hyo Jin with her clumsiness. I really enjoyed their acting here. So did the supporter character. Everyone was equally doing their best to portray their character.

Though the focus of the series itself is not romance, but I can feel a great chemistry between the ML and FL. They portrayed pure love. And it feels so sweet and sincere.

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