Bodybuilding is fascinating. There's an unspoken camaraderie among those who eat, live and breathe bodybuilding.
Just like in Pumping Iron, the champion, Phil Heath is depicted as the villain and like Lou Ferrigno, Kai is the hardworking underdog.
Ben Pakulski is sort of the "Ivan Drago" of this docudrama. Dennis Wolf has a particularly awkward comedic scene and Roelly Winklaar is absolutely hilarious.
I am so glad the director, Vlad Yudin did not show Branch Warren shouting swear words and throwing weights.
The plot is really all about Kai vs Phil. To people unfamiliar to bodybuilding, the footage of the other bodybuilders can seem out of place since the audience doesn't get to form any type of connection with them.
They do touch on anabolic steroids but it is very limited. "Bigger, Faster, Stronger" is a better documentary for that but it is nice that they do mention it instead of ignoring the elephant in the room.
I follow bodybuilding very closely so a lot of the content seems redundant, but I still gave this a ten just because I love bodybuilding. It's great to see that somebody is at least trying to break it out of it's shell and I support that 100% percent.
Bodybuilding is such a niche market and outsiders have such a close-minded opinion of it that I highly doubt this film will make much of an impact but I sincerely thank Vlad Yudin for the effort.
P.S. It was quite amusing seeing some of the gigantic audience members trying to get comfortable in the seemingly tiny movie theater seats.
