User Reviews

This enjoyable film gives a nice look into the boxing and pimp milieu of Hamburg/Germany in the 1960's. Wilhelm v. Homburg is a retired german boxer who had his best days in the mid-sixties. This film reviews his career which he made not only in boxing but as well as a gangster in the then romantic redlight district of Hamburg and later as a wrestler, boxer and actor in LA where he lives today. It contains footage of his fights and TV appearances, interviews with v. Homburg himself and with his former boxing and gangster fellows. You get the impression most of them a drunk while giving the interviews. But that doesn't make this film less interesting as you can guess.

A stunning documentary about Norbert Grupe better known as Prinz Wilhelm von Homburg. But Grupe is far from being aristocracy by any stretch of term (see summary of pic above) ! Possibly best known for his uncanny role as 16th-century tyrant Vigo von Homburg Deutschendorf in "Ghostbusters 2", Grupe has a life story that is perhaps only rivaled by Jacques Mesrine.

If you enjoy documentaries in the vein of "Grey Gardens" or "Crumb", you will love "Der Boxprinz"...

Wilhelm Von Homburg (1940-2004) was the son of his father, the "King", and thus the "Prince". Under this title he won a lot more boxing matches than he lost, pushed by his ambition to become, one day, world champion. Although he belonged to Hamburg as all the other persons portrayed in Kroske's documentary, he left Germany early for the US, where he believed to be able to make carrier (as anyone allegedly could). However, his German boxing matches remained his most popular ones, the famous interview during which he drove a reporter to the edge of insanity simply by not answering any questions, was hold in Germany, and also his best film role, in Werner Herzog's "Stroszek", played in Hamburg. After having spent some years in prison because of procuring, he installed himself in Los Angeles, living from odd jobs and sometimes playing short, but memorable film roles, most remarkably in films with the best actors and directors. Kroske's film shows a lot about the loneliness of this displaced person, commenting in a drunk state to old movies that Kroske played him in his dark and scruffy apartment, the walls of which he had plastered with yellowed photos from his great times in St. Pauli. The conception of a museum helped to conserve his memory, but Kroske forgot to ask him if there would be no change to go back to his real homeland. Shortly after the movie was done, the Prince fell ill with cancer, left his museum and died in Mexiko's Puerto Vallarta, leaving no traces behind him.