K-drama Under the Gun: SF9’s Zuho and Jo Soo-min lead teen romance with poker symbolism, but nothing else sets it apart so far
- Zuho from K-pop group SF9 plays Go Gun, a young, skilled poker player, but is it him, or his rich love interest - played by Jo Soo-min - who stands to lose?
- So far the series is proving to be little more than a formulaic high school drama once the poker imagery is stripped away
Lead cast: Zuho, Jo Soo-min
The high-school teen romance Under the Gun opens in an underground poker bar, where Go Gun, the teenage protagonist played by Zuho of the K-pop outfit SF9, works one of his many part-time jobs.
Occasionally he is pushed by his boss to play against clients and show off his poker skills, and this is when we learn where the show’s title comes from. It is a poker term that refers to the player who is the first to bet in a given round and is thus in the most precarious position.
This phrase and other bits of poker terminology provide the titles of the show’s episodes, but particular emphasis is placed on this first one. “Gun” is a euphemism for pressure and also happens to be the name of the show’s male lead, who handily prevails over the player who bets first in the poker scene in the first episode.
Gun is a careful character who has been marked by trauma in his life. He lost his mother, his sister is in hospital with leukaemia and his father, who used to be a star poker player, has become a drunk, gambling degenerate.