A Review of Physical: 100

The Netflix competition show from South Korea is a fresh and exciting reality competition show that is worth your time.

Physical 100 is a new Netflix original series, filmed in South Korea, that consists of one hundred contestants in top physical shape to compete in a variety of challenges to find “the perfect physique” regardless of gender. The last remaining contestant will win ₩300 million Won which is approximately $250,000 USD.

The contestants are not just ordinary people, they are well known actors, gymnasts, wrestlers, weightlifters, MMA fighters, Ex-military and many influencers; to see them compete with their great physiques is really exciting as well as interesting since there are some shocking results. 

Throughout the episodes, the camera catches different angles, which allows viewers to get a good look at the appropriate settings according to the challenge prompts. The suspenseful music allows the audience to experience the nerves that contestants feel as they try their hardest to overcome the challenges.  

In the first episode there is the “pre-quest”, where the first half of the contestants stood in rows in a dark room. The challenge was to hang from a structure while hanging above a pool of water. The person who held on the longest would be the winner in this challenge and would have an advantage for the actual challenge. As the contestants hung on to the structure, the structure was raised up and the floor that they were standing on split into two. One contestant fell nearly as soon as they were raised up. Many contestants were surprised about how early someone fell into the water. Soon after, other contestants fell in, one by one as the tension rose. Some contestants complained that they felt cramps; others complained that their blood was not circulating in their bodies. You can tell by their facial expressions that they were exhausted, which makes sense because it was actually exhausting to watch. It was amazing to see the different methods that contestants used to try and hold on for a long time. While some held on quietly, others told themselves motivational words.

After the pre-quest, contestants had to do the actual first quest which consisted of having a 3 minute one-on-one deathmatch to claim a ball, with the one who had the ball at the last second advancing to the next round. In this quest  50% of the contestants would be eliminated. The 50 contestants that came in first in the last pre-quest would get the advantage of not only choosing their opponent, but also the arena that they would be competing in. Because of this we got to see interesting choices and some thrilling death matches. While watching this I felt excited/nervous because I knew that some of my favorite contestants would get disqualified. The show really does a great job of allowing the viewer to get to know contestants and cheer for their favorites and against those who you might consider a villain. 

This is a really thrilling show. If you enjoy watching physical reality competitions, we highly recommend watching it. The fact that producers made the time and effort  to create specific arenas for each of the quests was impressive. It made it more appealing to watch since we weren’t watching them in the same setting the whole show. 

One thing we disliked was the fact that during quests producers would focus more on the reactions of other participants rather than the ones actually participating. For example during the death matches they would give more screen time to the reactions rather than showing the full match without any cuts. It made it frustrating for us to watch because we as viewers find it more enjoyable to watch the participants doing the challenges than their reactions to them. That's the only thing that we didn’t enjoy as much. 

Overall we gave Physical:100 an 8.5/10, because we really enjoyed the way the challenges were displayed and done.