Korean show, 100 super-fit people, a mix of athletes, bodybuilders, models, actors, military/law enforcement, other fitness celebrities that are likely very famous in South Korea but entirely strangers to American me, put into an athletic competition to determine “The Best Physique.”
It’s possible that last thing is a bad translation, but essentially it’s kind of like real-life Squid Game without all the murder. Very competitive challenges, but it still doesn’t get all American-reality-TV if you know what I mean. The competitors remain respectful to each other in a very Asian kind of way, it’s kind of like full-contact Great British Baking Show.
I’m not even to the end of the available episodes but I can’t look away.
We’re watching it in the Sense household! I’ve been saying for years they need to do a show like this where they either compete on strength or do a “Reverse Biggest Loser” aka “Biggest Gainer” where they put a bunch of dorks under a bench press or in a squat rack for 4 months and give them the Captain America treatment. Physical 100 has a strange draw to it, mostly the way Korean culture comes through in both the contestants and the editorial choices. It’s entertaining seeing the contestants going “Everyone knows that guy, he’s so famous and scary, I’m honored to be in his presence” and you’ve just got no clue who they are.
But just like Squid Game, subs over dubs, all the way.
I just stumbled on this show last night, and ended up watching all five available episodes straight through.
The show is simultaneously horribly boring and impossible to look away from. The first episodes has all the contestants one by one walk into this room where 100 white plaster torso molds of all the contestants are displayed. They wander around looking for their own torso, with lots of polite chit chat and bowing as they meet each and exchange remarks about how great the other looks and how they’re total fans of him/her, etc. This goes on for a FULL 30 MINUTES without anything else happening!
(When a contestant is eliminated, they have to smash their bust, which is actually impactful.)
And the contestants comments, dubbed into English, are as amazingly stupid as the worst athlete’s comments I’ve ever heard. “I just have to hold on for another minute,” “My arms are burning!”, “I can’t go out this soon,” and so forth.
Plus they continually do, um, mini-replays any time someone actually makes a good move or a clever-ish quip. Live 5 seconds long repeats, dozens and dozens every episode!
And somehow I just couldn’t click away from it.
Does anyone know how many episodes there will be? Apparently they released episodes 1 & 2, then 3 & 4 a week later, but only episode 5 the week after that.
There’s definitely some curious editing choices. I chalk up most of it just to “it’s Korean.”
The constant instant replays from every camera angle are disturbing to my sense of good video making. It’s fine if something remarkable happens, like the first person falling, a bunch of people falling at once, and the second to last person falling, but they did it every single time anyone fell.
I suppose the contestants walking in is probably a lot more impactful if these people are celebrities to you, but even so it went on for like 30 minutes. I had no clue who any of them were except for the older MMA guy Choo Sung-hoon, who I’m pretty sure I’ve seen fight.
I started watching it with the dubbed audio just because I wasn’t sure how good or bad the show would be, but once it hooked me I switched it to Korean and subs.
As for the schedule, Netflix site says 9 episodes, last one releasing on Feb 21. So 5-6 tomorrow, and 7-8 next week.
Second season of this just came out. Like the first season, we get the first 5 episodes now, the next 3 in a week, and the last 2 a week after that.
Some of the same contestants have returned. Not that I know who any of these people are. There’s a token White and a token Black. No Latinos a far as I can tell, but I can’t imagine there’s much of a Latino population in Korea.
Only watched the first episode so far, but it looks like they’ve amped up the events appropriately for the second season. Looking forward to watching the rest of this.
I couldn’t get past the first episode. StarvingButStrong’s description is right on the money: a full half-hour of people saying “Hey, it’s that guy from that fitness video! Wow! He’s great!” followed by a seemingly endless flexed-arm hang competition.
