What is Physical: 100?
“Physical: 100” is a South Korean reality show released early 2023 on Netflix. The premise of the show is 100 men and women in peak physical shape, plus being in the top of their fields in sports and jobs, battle in various contests for one final winner. You have contestants such as Olympic gold winners, models, YouTube stars, MMA fighters, Bodybuilders, Army personnel, Dancers and more.
These contests require different types of body strength, balance or skill which make the show fair as you have your big strong participants but also your smaller but agile participants.
How does this reality show competition work?
Physical: 100 has split the activities to what they call quests. There are 5 quests, and these are the main competitions the contestants will be facing to progress. Around these 5 quests are side missions (called pre-quests on the show) that give the contestants certain bonuses / perks.
Inside the reality show Physical: 100:
All these “quests” and side missions are unisex giving a nice balance to the competition. Don’t be fooled to think all the big muscle men or women are much better than ones without big muscles in these competitions, you might be surprised 😉 (or not 😆)!
I like that every single participant is introduced at the beginning of the show, some have longer introductions than others, but it is a nice touch to get a sense of the type of contestants and who they are instantly before it starts.
Here are the list of quests and side missions:
1st Side Quest: Hang from the Structure
Hang from a structure the longest, winner earns a perk.
1st Main Quest: One-on-One Death Match
One-on-one fight in one of two arenas’, the person who is holding the ball at the end of the 3-minute round wins. If no winner by end of 3-minute round, then it goes into overtime until there is a winner. The loser is out of the competition. Grappling allowed but no punching or kicking (Unless…. watch and find out…).
2nd Main Quest: Moving Sand
In teams of 5, participants must first fix / build a bridge then fill and carry sand up the stairs then across this bridge to fill a tank. The contestants cannot pass the sandbags to each other, they must carry the bag to the tank themselves once filled. This is all within a time limit of 12 minutes. Losing teams are out of the competition.
2nd Side Quest: One Last Chance
Participants must hold onto a rope carrying their torso sculpture that is 40% of their weight as long as they can. The last five participants holding their sculpture will get through.
3rd Main Quest: Moving a 1.5 ton ship
Two contestant teams must pair with each other to make a 10-person team to move a 1.5 ton ship from one position to another. The ship is first stationed on a flat wooden deck and must be moved to another wooden deck that has an incline. These wooden decks are surrounded by sand and there are heavy wooden logs available to aid the movement of the ship. The team is required to move various weighted barrels onto the ship first and position the wooden logs so the ship can be placed onto it until the final incline wooden deck… Gruelling indeed.
4th Main Quest: Team delegate match
The team delegate match consists of five games. One delegate of each 5-person team (original team created on the moving sand task) enters each game. The teams themselves get to decide which team members go into which game. Once every team has picked a person for a game, the 4 chosen players in each game will fight for one spot in the final (Quest 5) and the other 3 are eliminated from the competition.
The games are inspired by Greek mythology and are:
The Punishment of Atlas
Hold up a big heavy rock until 1 contestant standing. No time limit…..
The Fire of Prometheus
Contests run an obstacle course to collect a fire baton. Three rounds with 1 contestant eliminated in each round.
The Wings of Icarus
The Contestants must continuously climb up a rope that is being lowered down until only 1 contestant left.
The Punishment of Sisyphus
Contestants must roll a 100kg boulder up and down a hill within 40 seconds constantly until 1 contestant is standing.
The Tail of Ouroboros
Contestants start on a running track equal distance from each other at the same time to catch the person in front of them. If you are caught up by the person behind, you are out. This continues until there is only 1 contestant left.
5th Quest – The Final
The final quest consists of four games. One contestant will be eliminated from each game until the final winner of Physical:100. Each game is right after each other too.
5 Way Split
First game of four, all five contestants are connected together through a harness and rope. This harness is also locked with a padlock. Each contestant has a key located in front of them which they need reach in order to open their padlock. Problem is the harness and rope only allows one contestant to pull and reach their key at a time.
Board Flipping
First round requires the remaining four contestants to form two teams. They will then need to work together to flip and have more boards of their team colour than the other team. The team that loses has to then have a one-on-one match of the same game to decide the loser.
Beep race
The last three contestants must run a short distance and ring a bell within a shortening time limit until one player does not make it in time.
Infinite Rope
The last grueling task, each participant must pull a heavy rope from a large coiled rope drum until there is no more rope. Winner is contestant who finishes there rope first.
Finishing verdict
This show is brilliant. I have felt excited and sad at times watching the contestants using all their determination and strength to persevere in tasks, you can even physically see it in the amount of sweat! I began to get attached to certain players and learning/ knowing what tasks they would win. It’s mentioned a lot elsewhere but if you want to watch a good but real Squid Games type show then this is it.
The show can be watched on Netflix here: https://www.netflix.com/watch/81587446?source=35
