Two competitors address their years-long rivalry on their sport’s biggest stage: the Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest.
This documentary takes you into the world of competitive eating, following the undefeated Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Champions, Takeru Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut. George Shea, the events’ commentator, took over the event in 1991. He realized that the Japanese have been competing in eating contests for years so he wanted to revolutionize the event in America. He decided to award the winners cash prizes along with a weight belt like they do in other sports.
Takeru “Kobi” Kobayashi was known as the undefeated Champion of eating competitions. He revealed he began eating enormous amounts of food when young girls in High School would give him food as a way to show gratitude. He didn’t want to waste it so he would eat all of it. He took the advice from his father to always be the best at whatever he decided to do, so he made a decision to be good at eating fast. He began entering events and won a competition eating 50 hot dogs with the bun, smashing the record of 25, then went on to win a contest eating the most cow brains.
In July of 2006, twenty competitors from all around the world would compete for the chance to win Nathan’s biggest 10,000 Award and belt. Takeru became a 5-time national champion and when Takeru kept winning the competition, they needed someone to rival him. Joey Chestnut had been watching Takeru for years, wondering how he could defeat him. Takeru had become the hero of eatingcompetitions and a national sensation receiving national praise, brand deals and even came out with his own mustard brand. He was on top of the world, labeled as poetic and an alchemist. Meanwhile, Joey decided that we would take his title and began training. Apparently, training for a hot dog competition takes a lot of discipline and hard work. It entails timing food consumption, specific breathing and neck exercises to make food go down easier and special bun dunking techniques for better digestion.
Joey finally faces Takeru in Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Competition and breaks his record. From then on he is considered American’s hero! Forget watching mukbang videos on YouTube, these hotdog eating competitions are next level. I’ve never seen such an exciting film about eating to win. This was brilliant, entertaining and a really great experience.
“The Good, The Bad, The Hungry” recently premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival
