Netflix K-drama review: Castaway Diva

Here is a possible paraphrased version of the text:

The family members are all living under false identities. Mok-ha’s old friend Jung Ki-ho is pretending to be Bo-geol, and Sang-doo is not their real dad.

Sang-doo rescued Ha-jung from her abusive husband Jung Bong-wan (Lee Seung-joon) when he was a government employee and she was trying to get away from him. He left his own life behind and took her and her kids to Seoul, where they took the names of another missing family.

But when Mok-ha comes back to society and becomes famous, Bong-wan, who is still violent, finds them.

He reveals their lies to the public, but Sang-doo has already confessed his crimes.

Bong-wan is a weak and clichéd villain in the series. He is easy to hate, but he is also irrelevant. There were many potential antagonists for Mok-ha, but the show relied on a cartoonish character like Bong-wan instead of focusing on Mok-ha and her music career.

The family wins against Bong-wan in court, but he tries to get his revenge by stabbing Sang-doo and killing himself. Since Sang-doo and Ha-jung were not legally married, Bong-wan’s death would make him the legal father of the family again.

The weirdest part is that the family seems more upset about being legally linked to a dead man than about losing Sang-doo, who sacrificed his life for them and was always there for them.

Luckily, Sang-doo survives and we can move on without thinking too much about the family’s values.

We go back to Mok-ha’s story, as she releases her first song and performs on stage for the first time, at the same event where she sang “Someday” with Ran-joo as a backup singer at the start of the series.

She sings “Fly Away”, a nice song, but like all the other songs in the show, it does not match the quality of “Someday”.

Mok-ha, played by the charming Park, is a joy to watch, but she did not face many challenges in her new life. She was supported and loved by everyone around her, and she did not have to struggle much.

She became Ran-joo’s mentor and friend, and she got several free places to live, including a fully furnished studio from Ki-ho. Her few rivals, like the pop star Eun Mo-rae (Bae Gang-ree), quickly became friends with her.

This may seem unfair to a character who almost died at sea and lived alone in the wild for half her life, but the story was not about her survival, it was about what happened after that.

Castaway Diva was a fun series to watch, from beginning to end. Park was great, as was her relationship with Ran-joo, and there were many satisfying moments along the way.

But, with such a strong premise, the show ends with a feeling of regret, not for its characters, but for its viewers. It feels like there was a better show possible. Maybe we’ll find it, “someday”.