"Asian people can be very strong": Physical: Asia's producer on addressing biases and dismantling stereotypes

Netflix’s popular reality show, Physical: Asia, has made a mark on viewers since its October 28, 2025, premiere. 

Featuring eight countries – Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and Turkey – the competition show aimed to capture the competitive spirit within the Asian countries. 

Series producer Jang Ho-gi, who also produced the two hit seasons of Physical: 100, spoke with  Deadline on November 7, 2025, shedding light on the show’s concept and the rationale for creating a spin-off focused on Asian countries. 

“There are prejudices and biases that Asian people are smaller. But we wanted to show everyone out there that Asian people can be very strong, and they have their own very strong traditional sports games,” Jang Ho-gi explained. 

He added that the participating countries were not selected to target “key growth markets for Netflix.” Instead, they were chosen based on the “traditional sports games” and large fanbases. 

Physical: Asia wanted the teams to showcase the “traditional sports legends of each country” in Asia.

Consequently, they tried to put athletes from traditional sports backgrounds in leadership roles, and players from other fields to balance things out. 

In the show, viewers saw Mongolian Bokh wrestler Bayarsaikhan Orkhonbayar, Thailand’s Muay Thai representative Superbon, and Turkish oil wrestler Recep Kara.

Physical: Asia producer talks about Mongolian team’s casting, Korea having an alleged advantage, and potential spin-offs

Producer Jang Ho-gi explained that while agencies and staff from different countries helped them contact athletes and meet with them, the casting of the Mongolian players came through an alternative process. 

According to Jang Ho-gi, the Mongolian government officials proposed that they cast 15 athletes from Mongolia and 15 from Korea to create a “Korea versus Mongolia” series.

“I said that it would be fun, but what’s more fun would also be having more countries and an Asian version. After we finalized that we were doing Physical: Asia, they helped to recommend us some of the athletes and people who would be great contestants,” he recalled. 

When asked about Team Korea having an advantage over the other teams, Jang Ho-gi agreed that the players might have a tactical advantage since they had the experience of competing in the two seasons of Physical: 100.

According to the makers, the Koreans were familiar with the format, but at the same time, they also knew that athletes from other Asian countries had experience competing in similar competition series.

That said, Jang Ho-gi dismissed the idea of giving the Koreans an advantage.

“I don’t think it’s enough to shake up the result or give them a really big advantage in playing the games,” Jang Ho-gi noted. 

He was then asked about the other countries he would like to cast in future editions. He replied that he wanted Brazil to be on one of the spin-offs.

“I get the most amount of messages from Brazilian fans, saying that they want to see a Physical: 100, Brazil version. I would love to see it too, because they are a sporting powerhouse and are big sports lovers,” he said. 

At the same time, he shared that he received messages from fans of the show to create a series featuring athletes from the “African region.”

He also explained that although the show started “very Korean-centered,” their goal was to expand. 

While their initial plan was to create Physical: World, they thought it would be better to start off with the “neighboring nations first.”

With that, they came to the idea of Physical: Asia, with spin-offs in the pipeline for Physical: US and Italy.

Stay tuned for more updates.