From August 12th,
Netflix
We like Physical 100 – impressively scaled studio physical tests from Korea and a fine example of the “authoratitive voice commands a process” genre the Koreans have made their own and it seems to have become such a breakout hit that there are various regional spin-offs coming, starting with a pan-Asian one later this year and US and seemingly various European ones in the works for the next 18 months.
So this feels like a bit of an oddity, it looks like Physical 100: Japan, but it seemingly isn’t, but from the trailer it looks enough like it to seem like a bit of an odd thing for Netflix to agree to. People play large scale physical games in a studio, they’re whittled down to a winner who wins a large cash prize (30m Yen – about £150,000). The spin here is that the contestants are retired professional sportspeople, either through aging or injury taking them out of action, competing for one last chance at glory, so presumably the first half hour won’t be people admiring each other’s physiques so much as a load of sad stories about why they don’t compete any more.
Other points of difference we will look forward to finding out in due course, but if you liked Physical 100 and/or physical endurance contents this will probably be in your wheelhouse. Let us know what you thought in the comments.
Two episodes in and I’m quietly digging this. It is *very* P100-coded, but the differences are interesting enough for the show to be considered on its own merits. The retired sportsperson angle works really well – everyone’s got quite good stories and personal reasons for being there. The formatting is quite interesting – you earn points in each event and having points means you get better living conditions, but you’re only eliminated by coming in the bottom X of any given competition. Will the rich get richer? Maybe, but it looks like they’ve found a way (at the end of episode two certainly) of ensuring nobody can get too comfortable.
Where the question mark is is how interesting the events are. So far, two episodes in, no complaints – basic but entertaining. Where P100 shines is that they manage to make it all look spectacular inside a studio, and there’s usually a surprising strategy element to each one. The preview for this suggests ‘basic but entertaining’ is going to be the level – certainly no qualms about running up a mountain, the Crunch Pit and the Giant Monkey Bar course thus far certainly as set pieces (Crunch Pit Mountain looks brilliant), but they’re not “this looks like it’s had some money thrown at it” style spectacular, also not much strategy thus far for the most part – Do The Thing Fast or Do The Thing As Many Times As You Can.
One thing that works in its favour is that episodes are 45-50 minutes rather than the best part of 90-120 so it feels quite tight – plenty of time for Camp Banter between events, but nothing is going to outstay its welcome I think, and it’s all done in eight episodes.
If like me you like slightly unusual endurance competitions then early indications are this is Very Much The Sort OF Thing You Might Enjoy.
Episode 3’s gone unexpectedly Squid Game Challenge.
Got to Episode 6 and…. that’s one heck of a curveball challenge from what we’d expect in this sort of show.
It certainly makes sense from the context, but, yeah, this isn’t going to be in Physical 100 anytime soon…
I really liked the Chase Tag bit – them getting better at working out the strategy and the champion getting more tired, so it was a shame it ended the way it did.
This was a fun series overall.