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Pierce Conran

This article contains mild spoilers.
Lead cast: Park Eun-bin, Kim Hyo-jin, Chae Jong-hyeop, Cha Hak-yeon
Latest Nielsen rating: 5.2 per cent
Following her breakout turn in 2022’s global smash hit Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Park Eun-bin proves she’s no fluke in Castaway Diva, a bewitching Robinson Crusoe-meets-A Star Is Born K-drama treat.


Verging on fantasy but grounded in reality, the show offers a compelling and emotional twist on the A Star Is Born template, in which a country girl from the sticks rises to stardom in the big city.
The twist here is that the country girl, on her way to the big city, first has to endure a 15-year detour when she falls off a ferry and washes up alone on a deserted island.
9 of the best new Korean drama series to watch in November 2023
Park plays Seo Mok-ha, the castaway diva of the title. As a teenager in 2007 – played by Peninsula actress Lee Re, thoroughly convincing as a young Park – she is a student on Cheongsam Island. Her vivacious and extroverted personality masks her inner turmoil as the daughter of a drunk and abusive single father.
She has a heavy country dialect, but that falls away when she opens her mouth to sing and a powerful voice drifts out capable of captivating anyone within earshot.
Her captivated audience includes her classmate Jeong Gi-ho (Moon Woo-jin) and K-pop icon Yoon Ran-joo (Kim Hyo-jin).

Mok-ha is a Ran-joo überfan who takes part in a singing competition put on by the star. She needs to shoot a video to enter and the only person around her with a video camera is Gi-ho.
The serious and bespectacled Gi-ho at first appears to be the opposite of Mok-ha. All he seems to care about is making a buck, but he and Mok-ha share more in common than they at first realise. Gi-ho also has an abusive father, a local police officer. The reason he needs cash is to run away.
Ran-joo is blown away by Mok-ha’s entry, but by the time the latter learns she has won the contest and is invited to Seoul, things have got so bad at home that the near-catatonic Mok-ha has abandoned her dreams.

A concerned Gi-ho implores her to come to him the next time she fears for her life. That soon happens, and when a barefoot and soaking Mok-ha taps on his window in the middle of a stormy night, he packs his things and decides to escort her to Seoul himself to meet her idol.
They board a ferry to the mainland, but as she escapes from her father, who has tracked her down, she falls off into the ship’s wake. Presumed dead, she washes up on a small, deserted island where she subsists on potatoes and seafood for the next decade and a half.
For his part, a despairing Gi-ho soon makes his own getaway from Cheongsam Island, never to be seen again. He does so after smashing the fish tanks in Mok-ha’s father’s seafood restaurant and releasing the animals into the sea.

His outburst is bittersweet, since it calls to mind the time he told Mok-ha she could wind up dead like one of the neglected, upturned fish in the tank.
Fast forward to the present, when Mok-ha (Park), now 31 and still living on the deserted island, comes face to face with a drone. The drone belongs to reporter Kang Woo-hak (Cha Hak-yeon), who is part of a volunteer clean-up crew, along with his brother, TV producer Kang Bo-geol (Chae Jong-hyeop), who have visited the island.
Mok-ha returns to an unfamiliar society and tries to track down Gi-ho and Ran-joo, who in the meantime has also become a washed up diva.

Castaway Diva’s lively opening episodes pull you in with their earnest sentimentality and clever plotting.
By the close of episode one we’re thoroughly drawn by the teenage Mok-ha’s plight and by the rousing finale of the next, when she steps into the shadows of a stage, lip-synching for a drunk Ran-joo, all the elements combine to heart-rending effect.
If anything can be described as a disappointment so far in the splendid opening episodes, it is that we are given precious little time with Mok-ha on her island.

We bear witness to her first day there and her last, by which time she’s erected a charming jungle abode. Hopefully the show will take some time to revisit this lengthy period of her life later on.
The show is dropping hints that Woo-hak, who has a murky background, may actually be Gi-ho, but let’s hope the show sidesteps such a contrivance-masquerading-as-fate in favour of something more original.
Castaway Diva is streaming on Netflix.


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Netflix K-drama Castaway Diva: Extraordinary Attorney Woo star Park Eun-bin steals hearts again in bewitching K-pop tale with Robinson Crusoe twist

“Castaway Diva” stars Park Eun-bin (above) as a girl with an amazing singing voice, who falls off a ferry while heading for Seoul, and spends the next 15 years on a desert island. Kim Hyo-jin, Chae Jong-hyeop, Cha Hak-yeon co-star.

Lee Re as the young Seo Mok-ha in a still from “Castaway Diva”.

A still from “Castaway Diva”.

Cha Hak-yeon as reporter Kang Woo-hak in a still from “Castaway Diva”.

Chae Jong-hyeop as TV producer Kang Bo-geol in a still from “Castaway Diva”.

Park Eun-bin as Seo Mok-ha (left) and Kim Hyo-jin as K-pop icon Yoon Ran-joo in a still from “Castaway Diva”.

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Wi Ha-jun (left) and Ji Chang-wook in a still from “The Worst of Evil”. The Disney+ crime K-drama ends well after recovering from an uneventful midsection. Photo: Disney+

Ji Chang-wook as undercover detective Park Jun-mo in a still from “The Worst of Evil”. The Disney+ crime K-drama ends well after recovering from an uneventful midsection. Photo: Disney+

Wi Ha-joon (left) as suave gangster Jung Gi-cheol, and Im Se-mi as Yu Eui-jeong, the undercover cop’s wife he’s trying to woo, in a still from “The Worst of Evil”. Photo: Disney+

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Wi Ha-jun as gangster Jung Gi-cheol in a still from “The Worst of Evil”. Photo: Disney+

Ji Chang-wook as undercover detective Park Jun-mo, in a still from “The Worst of Evil”. Photo: Disney+

Netflix K-drama review: Doona! – Bae Suzy plays a K-pop superstar in superficial, drawn-out romance series

Bae Suzy as Lee Doona in a still from Netflix K-drama “Doona!”. Photo: Kim Seung-wan/Netflix

Bae Suzy (left) as Lee Doona in a still from Netflix K-drama “Doona!”. Yang Se-jon co-stars. Photo: Kim Seung-wan/Netflix

Bae Suzy as K-pop star Lee Doona in a still from “Doona!”. Photo: Netflix

Yang Se-jong (left) as Lee Won-jun and Ha-young as Kim Jin-ju in a still from “Doona!”. Photo: Kim Seung-wan/Netflix

Bae Suzy (left) as Lee Doona and Yang Se-jong as Lee Won-jun in a still from “Doona!”. Photo: Kim Seung-wan/Netflix

Bae Doona offered lead in sci-fi thriller K-drama Family Planning, Ahn Bo-hyun eyed for historical drama Hash’s Shinru – Korean drama casting latest

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Lee Bo-young in a still from “Mine”. Photo: tvN

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Ryu Seung-bum in a still from “Moving”. Photo: Disney+ 

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A still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”.

Park Gyu-young as schoolteacher Han Hae-na in a still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”, a Korean fantasy romcom about a young woman who turns into a dog when she kisses someone on the lips.

Cha Eun-woo as maths teacher Seo-won in a still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”.

Lee Hyun-woo as history teacher Bo-gyeom in a still from “A Good Day to Be a Dog”.

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Lee Yoo-mi in a still from “Strong Girl Nam-soon”.

Lee Yoo-mi as Gang Nam-soon in a still from “Strong Girl Nam-soon”. Netflix’s series is high budget and high energy, but it fails to live up to Strong Girl Bong-soon, the classic K-drama on which it is based.

Kim Jung-eun as Gang Nam-soon’s corporate tycoon mother Hwang Geum-joo in a still from “Strong Girl Nam-soon”.

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Ong Seong-wu as young narcotics officer Kang Hee-sik in a still from “Strong Girl Nam-soon”.

Lee Yoo-mi as protagonist Gang Nam-soon in a still from “Strong Girl Nam-soon”.

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Park Eun-bin, who impressed audiences in Extraordinary Attorney Woo, returns in Castaway Diva, a mix of Robinson Crusoe and A Star is Born
She plays Seo Mok-ha, a girl with an amazing voice who falls off a ferry on her way to Seoul and spends 15 years on a desert island


Castaway Diva stars Park Eun-bin (Extraordinary Attorney Woo) as a girl from the Korean countryside with an amazing singing voice, who falls off a ferry bound for Seoul and lands on a desert island.
