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According to the minimalist presentation of its video games and units, Bodily: 100 declares a winner within the Season 1 finale with little fanfare. No confetti drops from the ceiling to obscure the loser, no person rushes in from the wings to hoist the victor into the air. It’s a quiet, virtually personal second of reflection. And the disembodied host gives closing narration, promising that “Our seek for the right physique will proceed.” That is teasing the possible second season, nevertheless it’s additionally inadvertently comical. Didn’t they only discover the right physique? Wasn’t that the purpose of the competitors? In Bodily: 100, 100 athletes, troopers, bodybuilders, and different match South Korea-based contestants are whittled down by a gauntlet of challenges. The declaration of the winner is barely the ultimate second of dissonance that the present has gifted its loyal viewers, who tuned in each week regardless of frustrations over cliffhangers, pacing, recreation design, and even gentle controversies. In the long run, the Netflix actuality present turned out to be its personal animal, a compelling sequence by some means bereft of the style’s conventional sights.
There isn’t a betrayal, no confrontation, no unhappy backstories. Within the third episode, an MMA fighter, Shin Dong-guk, selects his opponent for Quest 1, “Dying Match,” a one-on-one the place the item is to be the participant holding a ball when the time runs out. Given his place of benefit from the Pre-Quest, he might’ve chosen a “weak” opponent. As an alternative, he goes with Yoshihiro Akiyama, right here often called Choo Sung-hoon (additionally “Sexyama”), an MMA legend. As soon as inside the world, he breaks protocol by turning the ball recreation right into a sparring match. “I’d by no means get a chance like this,” he attests. And so, these two begin punching and kicking, and the contestants watching start to cheer. What’s protocol, anyway? Past the above object, no guidelines had been established. And the extra vital query is, what’s the purpose of getting guidelines if breaking them is so entertaining? It felt like subversion, with contestants producing leisure the place Bodily: 100 itself couldn’t. Quest 1 is then adopted by a string of challenges that forfeit direct competitors altogether. Need to watch folks carry baggage of sand? Or logs? The magic trick is that the reply is, “Sure!”
How ‘Bodily: 100’ Tells a Story
By Quest 2, it appeared as if Bodily: 100 was making up floor misplaced by its early slow-burn pacing. The present launched almost all 100 contestants, after which kicked issues off with a problem the place everybody hung from metallic bars. Not precisely cinematic — after which they repeat it! With 50 contestants remaining after Dying Match, the host — depicted by a Home windows screensaver versus a Jeff Probst or Phil Keoghan standing off to the facet — pronounces that 10 of them will likely be chosen as group captains of 10 respective groups. As a tiered vote, it’s an unmistakable reputation contest, leading to 9 male captains and a single lady on the very finish, the wrestler Jang Eun-sil. The opposite 40 contestants are instructed to once more vote, by standing earlier than the group captain of their selection. With one feminine exception, no person chooses Eun-sil, whose group is ultimately made up of these minimize from different groups — the “Island of Misfit Toys” from Moneyball — main into an episode entitled “The Underdogs.”
That is Bodily: 100 at its most outwardly narrative, clipping collectively speaking head interviews of males underestimating Eun-sil’s group, the one one in all 10 with a majority of ladies. Quest 2 is revealed as “Transferring Sand,” the place two groups are tasked with filling baggage of sand on one finish of the world, then carrying the baggage up a staircase and throughout a bridge to fill a tube on the different finish — although first, the bridge needs to be constructed. On the finish of a grueling 12 minutes, the group with extra sand within the tube wins the search, and the shedding group is eradicated. Eun-sil’s group is chosen by fellow wrestler Nam Kyung-jin, a strategic determination and the closest the present will get to a actuality present backstabbing. As Eun-sil explains, Kyung-jin had earlier instructed her that wrestlers ought to stick collectively. And that’s just about the extent of it. There isn’t a argument within the hall, with a peeping digicam zoomed in and unsteady. The truth is, Eun-sil offers Kyung-jin a fist bump earlier than they enter the world.
The Plot of ‘Bodily: 100’ is Refined, Even Devious
The host’s glowing animation offers option to a pentagonal diagram of “endurance, energy, steadiness, willpower, and quickness,” and Transferring Sand would require two of those factors: energy and steadiness. A later quest, “Sq. Flip,” prioritizes quickness, whereas the third quest, “1.5-Ton Boat Problem,” makes a speciality of energy, with groups of 10 transferring a 1.5-ton ship throughout the world, after it’s been loaded with a half-ton of barrels. The pentagon suggests the true speculation in Bodily: 100’s scientific inquest to “seek for the right physique,” that it isn’t “the larger the higher,” however fairly about steadiness. Sure challenges will favor specialists, because the very first did for a mountain rescue climber, however each participant will likely be examined. Quest 2 is a excessive level for the sequence, and never as a result of the problem itself was a specific spectacle. Definitely, the ladies show themselves towards gender bias, however Bodily: 100 can also be so involved with how they show themselves. As an alternative of the voyeuristic digicam teeing up the narrative, it’s a lens delicate to the sweat and battle of athletic efficiency. We watch these contestants push previous their ache.
The semifinals return to particular person challenges, and scale down the manufacturing even additional. In a single quest, entitled “The Punishment of Atlas,” 4 contestants have to carry up a big boulder. It lasts for 2 hours. Presumably probably the most egregious anti-television problem is a literal shuttle run, which is definitely the penultimate recreation to resolve the ultimate two contestants. The viewers, each at house and within the viewing occasion of beforehand eradicated gamers, watch as these three shuttle greater than 80 occasions — and it’s gripping. Certainly, there’s the appreciable weight of being throughout the prime three of 100, nevertheless it’s additionally the understanding of how laborious these contestants are pushing themselves. How a lot farther they will probably go? In the long run, a participant falls to the ground, and the opposite two rush — as a lot as they will — to his aide. His physique gave out earlier than his thoughts did, and that is maybe an important level within the pentagon: willpower.
There Are Extra Essential Issues Than Successful on ‘Bodily: 100’
How does somebody truly carry out a feat of not possible athleticism? What do they must be considering? Because the mountain climber Kim Min-cheol says, “To me, Bodily: 100 was enlightenment.” When contestants are eradicated, their speaking head interviews are normally about how they’ve discovered one thing new about themselves, and can vow to coach more durable sooner or later. By competing with a wide range of specialists, they uncover that the definition of energy is infinitely broad. Don’t belief that the heavier man will essentially be sluggish, the thin man weak, and particularly that the ladies received’t push two tons throughout an area. On this approach, the riddle of the “good physique” doesn’t have a linear reply instructed by the elimination format. The present’s winner was determined by a mix of energy, luck, and the type of willpower exhibited by each contestant, a lot of whom — like Jang Eun-sil — grew to become in a single day stars for his or her efficiency.
There’s a second when bodybuilder Ma Solar-ho begins to falter on “The Punishment of Sisyphus,” repeatedly pushing a boulder up a slope, and the gang chants “two, three, two, three,” to assist with momentum. The chanting subsides, and Solar-ho appears to be like up at them and says, “Try this once more for me.” It was so deeply human, and unexpectedly transferring inside a present the place earlier, Sexyama shirtlessly screamed, in non-native English, “What the fuck?!” after finishing the boat problem. In solely three of 14 challenges did contestants make bodily contact with one another, because it seems that Bodily: 100 was a lot extra in regards to the triumph of people over themselves. To increase the movie allusion, it’s that scene in Moneyball the place Peter reveals Billy Beane the tape of the participant who’s afraid to spherical first base, however goes for it anyway and falls down. The expertise algorithm of sabermetrics boosted the participant’s confidence sufficient to attempt one thing new, and whereas just one contestant in Bodily: 100 hit the house run, so many extra met their limits and reset them. It’s no marvel that TikTokers have been taking up varied challenges for themselves, whereby the quests are not “low-budget” however “accessible.” What’s the definition of energy? That’s for everybody to resolve.
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