PUBLISHED ONFebruary 07, 2023 9:58 AMByKhoo Yi-HangWhen faced against national athletes double her size, there wasn't much Elaine Wong could do in Netflix's Physical: 100 — but she gave as good of a fight as she could.
In an interview with AsiaOne on Monday (Feb 6), Elaine shared what it was like squaring off against these titans in South Korean sports, but also expressed that she did stand a chance against them in some matches.
"Most of them were like, [both] hunky and chunky," the 34-year-old said. "Even the girl in front of me was, too. I was like, 'Oh my god. Should I just quit? This is a scam!'"
Netflix's latest reality show, Physical: 100, pits some of the strongest people in South Korea against each other as they vie for the prize — 300 million won (S$316,900).
Participating in this competition are national athletes representing South Korea, such as Olympians Yang Hak-seon and Yun Sung-bin, mixed martial arts fighters like Choo Sung-hoon and even bodybuilders with sculpted muscles.
On the other end of the spectrum, Elaine — once a K-pop idol hopeful with MBK Entertainment — is an actress who weighs in at only 42kg.
And while she does keep fit by going to the gym "almost every day" and doing pilates, that was the bare minimum she needed to trim down fat, stay healthy and keep her figure.
In contrast, these other contestants are double her weight or more and made of pure muscle.
In fact, she could literally be picked up by some contestants and carried around, she shared with AsiaOne.
"I'm not the type to go to a gym to carry out a 40kg or 100kg deadlift — I don't do that," Elaine said."So I wouldn't say I'm very strong, but I'm definitely not weak.
"But compared to all these contestants, I don't think I can be on the same level as them."
She added: "So in Korean, I would tell them, 'Daddy and Mummy, please don't hurt me, we're all friends!'"
And Elaine stood out from the crowd of muscular men and women so much that even other contestants decided to call her a "rabbit".
"They were like, 'Oh, Elaine, you're like a rabbit! You're so fair, you're so small and everybody's trying to eat you!"
So how did this rabbit end up in a den of lions, tigers and wolves?
When Netflix scouted her to join Physical: 100, Elaine had no idea what the show would be about apart from it being a variety show that bears some resemblance to Squid Game and Dream Team.
Netflix had learned of her through word of mouth and through her work in other variety shows, such as South Korean Foreigners.
The questions they asked Elaine at the time seemed harmless and didn't give any inclination that it would be about "muscular men fighting", she said.
"They said it would be great to have me on board and I was like, 'Okay, but what kind of game is it?' …They just said, 'Oh, you don't have to worry, it's going to be very fun, like Squid Game.'"
Squid Game is a fictional thriller wherein participants compete in children's games with a deadly twist — losers end up dead.
She tried to probe for more information over the course of three to four meetings, to which she was met with a stonewall as Netflix didn't provide direct answers to her questions.
Recalling how Netflix had dismissed her questions, she ended up coming to her own conclusions: "I seriously thought it was like Dream Team, where you just run across a pool and try to push the opponent into the water — that's fun, right?"
It was only on the first day of filming where the hundred contestants were introduced that she finally found out who her fellow contestants were.
And while she saw the familiar faces of some people in showbiz, she also saw a lot of muscled men and women.
After meeting her fellow competitors face-to-face, they were soon brought to their first game.
In this, participants had to hang from metal bars overhead while the floor opened up to reveal a long drop into a pool of water below.
In order to win, contestants would have to outlast other competitors by hanging on the metal bars. If they fell into the water, they would lose.
As tough as this challenge was, even for the Olympians and other athletes with peak physique, there was that Elaine had to deal with compared to the other participants — she's got both a fear of water and heights.
She shared: "I really tried my best… when they opened the [floor], it was all water below and it's all foggy… you don't know how high it is, you don't know how deep the water is or what's inside of it."
The distance between the bars they clung onto and the water was about two to three storeys high, she added.
Afraid of falling, she hung on as long as she could, but she had neither the skill nor strength to keep holding on.
In hindsight, she noted that the other contestants had found leverage in the competition by pulling themselves up and resting the metal bar under their armpits. Unfortunately, Elaine didn't know how to do that and could only rely on her fingers.
"I was just dangling on the bar… I didn't know how to jump up and use my armpits to hold myself there," she said.
"I'm pretty sure that if I knew the tactics to get up there, I could last longer than a lot of them."
Elaine finished the competition at about the 80th place among the 100 participants and she hung for a few minutes, which she considers an accomplishment, she added.
Despite her best efforts, her loss in the first challenge meant that there was blood in the water and all the sharks could smell it.
In the second challenge, the top 50 performing contestants get to pick their opponents for a one-on-one deathmatch where two people would fight for ownership of a ball — at 80th place, Elaine was unfortunately not able to pick her adversary.
"Everybody was [thinking about] picking me — everybody," she said. "It was like you're throwing a rabbit to a tiger."
Thankfully, many of the men were very "prideful" and did not choose her, especially since picking her would have clearly been just an act of trampling on someone weaker, she explained.
She added: "But you can see everyone [in the top 50] would come down and look at me twice… I'm pretty sure everyone wants to pick me so that they can move on to the next round."
Ultimately, she was chosen by fitness YouTuber Shim Eu-ddeum and the two stood face-to-face while Eu-ddeum selected the map they would fight in.
While other contestants played it up with threats like "I'm going to kill you" or "I'll make you regret choosing me", Elaine opted for a different approach: Damage control.
"I said, 'Hi, I know you're very strong, can you just be gentle with me? Thank you.'"
And perhaps it was good that she did — according to Elaine, the second challenge was brutal, with many contestants sustaining injuries.
She recalled how some fights resulted in participants almost drowning in the muddy pool on one of the two maps, while another had her leg chafed by the sand in the arena.
She also revealed that some competitors sustained more severe injuries like broken ribs, torn ligaments or fractured shoulders.
Elaine said: "Behind the scenes, there's an ambulance every 20 to 30 minutes, picking up [contestants] and going off."
And it wasn't just because she was scared of getting hurt that she stopped herself from going all in for the match against Eu-ddeum — she was already signed to other programmes and had back-to-back schedules for five following months, she said.
If she had gotten so grievously wounded that she was unable to film, Elaine would have been forced to leave the show she was working on and pay a penalty for breaching her contract.
In her match against Eu-ddeum, she did get close to getting the ball, but Eu-ddeum was simply faster and stronger than her, Elaine said.
"She can literally carry me and run," Elaine laughed. "If I got the ball from her, she would probably just lift me up instead."
Although Elaine was eliminated from Physical: 100 following her match against Eu-ddeum, she isn't seeing it as a loss.
"It's still an opportunity for me to show my potential and show people my charms… I still think I won. Every opportunity is one that you have to grab, you don't know when you'll make it."
Being on a Netflix show has given her recognition, she said, and also inspired her to work harder.
"It shows that hard work really does pay off, because I've been preparing myself and working hard for the past 13 years… It's actually given me a push for me to work even harder now," Elaine explained.
And while some netizens have felt that she didn't belong on the show or believed that she was sent in as cannon fodder, Elaine is taking it all in her stride.
"I don't think I was cast to fail, because everything to me is an opportunity, it really depends on how I grab it... I'm not someone that's easily swayed by negative comments because it's my work, and it's my life.
"If I'm invited to [a show], I always do my best, regardless of anything else… because whatever you do, you can't please everybody," she said.
And if there's any doubt about what she's gained from this show, Elaine's also made new connections in the form of her co-stars in Physical: 100.
She said that 47-year-old MMA fighter Sung-hoon "always gathers" the contestants of Physical: 100 for meetups but she hasn't been able to make it due to her busy schedule.
Likening her experience to buying a lottery ticket, Elaine added: "You'll keep buying without knowing exactly when you'll win. So to me, this is a consolation prize — I still want more than that, so I'll work for it even more."
Physical: 100 is now available on Netflix with two new episodes every Tuesday.
ALSO READ: Hang in there: Singaporeans try Physical 100 challenge, will they succeed?
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