Seems like there are quite a few movies about Auschwitz boxing champions. I haven't seen the 2 other big movies so I can't compare them all yet. This one tries to stay true to history to some degree. It unfortunately doesn't quite do that. Teddy did quite a lot more in the camp. Tried to kill an SS officer. Killed a dog used to attack Jews. Did quite a bit in the camp besides boxing that actually makes the movie a story that overlooks cool events which seldom happens in the movie industry. It's only because of budgetary constraints. Here he is just boxing and then giving prisoners the food he wins and gets medicine too. It's a very basic movie that never quite finds a theme. We seldom understand what will happen if he loses. The first 45 minutes are fun and engaging and don't feel cheap. But soon you feel how small the movie is. It's the same few buildings. The same few people. Same type of scenes. It's supposed to be a giant camp, but it doesn't look big here. Even cheap American movies at least cast groups of people. This is a small set movie that could as well have been a theater play. It would have improved the movie quite a bit to show him fighting in the army and then getting captured. Then joining the army again after the war. Just some big scenes to show us who he is and why we should care about him. This doesn't bother me for the first 45 minutes. But after that the movie becomes too repetitive to some degree. All scenes are grey and slow. All are small sets. It looks fine and the acting is great, but boring. It works to some degree. For example, at one point he has to fight a big German boxer. They just spot him beating up prisoners. Teddy wants to fight him. They set up the match the same day. Where is the tension? Totally gone. They need to set this stuff up. Let the big German beat him up at the beginning when he is tired and doesn't eat well. Then later he starts to box and gets proper food. And then soon the match-up is talked about again and the guards are eager to set it up to show Teddy he is not the best. Something like that. Slow story building the fights up to create hype. Instead we just go scene by scene. He talks about a fight, he fights and wins, he gets food. So forth. The script is quite lazy. Initially when he is working on mining stones we actually have a bit of tension and more variety. Later he starts working in the barn and then all scenes are set in like 5 locations only. Not sure why this decline in quality takes place, shame.

But again, the movie does look proper and you never feel like they tried to make a fast buck. It's just that the camp should have looked 5 times as large. And they could have added quite a few more engaging scenes and events too if they could afford just 2-3 more sets and way more actors. Then his real history could be told. I felt like it is a decent movie. But after watching trailers for the bigger productions and reading a bit about his story I feel like we got cheated here. This should have been bigger and better. You really could have done a bit more for the budget too to add variety like having the first 20 minutes be about his capture. Or have the last 15 minutes be about how he fought his last fights in a new place and then how the camps were closed down. Or just add in all the stuff he did in the camp to fight the guards. Something to make the story fit one and a half hours of runtime. Which some tension building also could help with.

It is a 2020 Polish film whose name is translated into English as "The Champion". It offers a glimpse into the experiences of a boxer known as "Teddy" in the auswitch concentration camp. The movie is a good period movie. In the Auswitch camp, it is revealed that non-Germans are not even seen as human beings. But a boxer resists according to his talent. He proves himself invincible while being fun to the Germans. During the film, people who were sent to the incinerators, who were killed because they answered, or who were arbitrarily killed, go with the blood. And the cruelest way to kill.

Absorbing but harrowing film to watch , however it's important to see these real life hero stories brought to our attention

Piotr Glowacki is spellbinding in his lead role as Teddy.