One-point-seven million to one -- those are the odds that a contestant will win Superstar K7, South Korea's highly competitive television audition program in its seventh season, now only with three live episodes remaining.
The show, started on the cable music channel Mnet in 2009, has produced such stars as Seo In-guk, Huh Gak, Ulala Session, Roy Kim and Park Jae-jung. Even Suzy of the girl group "miss A" was picked up by a JYP Entertainment recruiter after being eliminated in the preliminaries of the first season.
Only the top 10 make it to the final six rounds of live contests and the five finalists of this season will face off in the fourth live broadcast later this week. The winner will be determined after two more shows.
With the quintet having nearly nothing in common besides musical talent and dedication to win, the finalists said Tuesday it is anyone's guess who will come away with the prize of 500 million won (US$44,000), a Jaguar XE, an opportunity to perform at the Mnet Asian Music Awards and most importantly, a record deal with a major label.
"It's really difficult to tell who will win because everyone is so good," Chun Danbi, a former chorus singer, told reporters at M Academy in Seoul, adding her winning would be a "miracle."
Kevin Oh, a New York native who garnered much attention here as an Ivy League graduate, said although he hasn't thought about it much, he hoped to win.
"I'm not sure. I haven't really thought about it. I wanna win, but I think Chun Danbi is a strong contender," he said.
Meanwhile, Jhameel Kim, who is part Japanese and part Mongolian and was born in Los Angeles, California, will put his part-Michael-Jackson-part-Bruno-Mars voice on the chopping block.
"I was really happy when singer Sung Si-kyung said I had what it takes to become a singer in Korea," Kim said. "Korea has always felt like home.... Winning this competition will allow me to make music in Korea and make that happen fast."
A self-proclaimed trailblazer in "chonseurock" -- a portmanteau word of a Korean word meaning "country" or "unsophisticated" and rock -- Zoongsick will once again try to titillate the judges with comical lyrics that double as social commentary.
Zoongsick members said the show has already rekindled their hope in playing music for a living.
"We had told ourselves that this year would be our last year together," the lead vocalist said. "But seeing so many people love our music on this show, we've restored hope to continue down this path."
Martin Smith, the first male duo to have made the top 10 on the show, said their winning would motivate budding artists to continue trying.
"We're fairly new to the music scene, so if we won this competition, it would add inspiration to young artists," one of them said.
The fourth live contest airs at 11 p.m. Thursday. (Yonhap)