Thursday, August 9, 2012

Sasuke Singapore is fun


The first episode of Sasuke Singapore, Singapore version of long running Japanese TV Show named Sasuke, has been aired yesterday on August 9th 2012, just after the National Day Parade 2012 (NDP 2012). Also known as Ninja Worrior (I am not quite sure what does Sasuke mean but it may be coming from a very famous ninja in ancient Japan named Sasuke Sarutobi), the program is famous for its difficult obstacle courses which requires contestants to be pyhsically strong and fit.

Sasuke Japan is now in its 27th season (almost 13 years on air I guess) and Sasuke Singapore was just out yesterday. My first impressions are below:

Sasuke Singapore is more like a mixture of Sasuke and ABC's Wiped Out not in the obstacle course but in the format it is presented. First the host, Singapore celebrity Joanne Peh (yes the Jetstar girl), interviews with the contestants before they take the course and the contestants behave like mad people as it is in Wiped Out. Yesterday, there were some colorful contestants. My favourite was the dude who were a terrible imitation of legendary Chun-Li (yes unfortunately he wore a blue qipao and had double buns on hair). Unlike the famous Street Fighter character, the first playable female character in the history of video games, this dude did not have the muscular legs to jump the trampoline and basically dived straight in the water in the second obstacle. Actually many contestants, whose childhood obviously lacked this large toy, could not jump so not a big shame. Given the profile of contestants I guess pre-show eliminations were not that serious.

Sasuke Singapore trailer

Commentators of Sasuke Singapore did not disappoint. Again here, format is more like Wipe Out than Sasuke but it fits quite well and the jokes were OK. There were also celebrities yesterday on the course like Joanne Peh's boyfriend Bobby Tonelli. He was actually rejected to host Sasuke at the auditions but now his girlfriend hosts the show and he was quite OK until the third obstacle but could not let the robe go and failed.

Singapore Sasuke looks like more comedy than action unlike Japan's Sasuke which is more action and less comedy. Still, this is only first episode and the Singapore show needs some time to accumulate stars like all-stars of Japanese version.

Sasuke Singapore is filmed on Sentosa Island and will have 4 different courses for 100 selected contestants to challenge.

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