Will to fight like against Lennox Lewis

The days when the Klitschko brothers were only thought of in terms of their numerous boxing successes and perhaps the Milchschnitte advertisements are over. Since February 24, 2022, for around two and a half years, people have also always thought of the war in their home country, in which the two are not only enduring, but are doing everything they can to defend Ukraine from the aggressor Russia.

This is exactly what is at the heart of a new documentary by British director Kevin Macdonald, who already won an Oscar for “One Day in September” about the Munich hostage-taking in 1972. His latest film is called “Klitschko – The Hardest Fight”, or in English: “Klitschko – More than a Fight”. And even if that is not a one-to-one translation, both titles could easily be used as headlines about the current lives of the brothers, who together shaped and dominated the sport of boxing for more than a decade.

A medal for all killed Ukrainian athletes

Ukrainian Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahutschich dedicated her gold to the approximately 500 athletes from her home country who were killed in the Russian war of aggression. Among them are Olympians from past games such as weightlifter Oleksandr Pjeljeschenko, who died at the front at the age of 30 in early May. The Ukrainian tragedy hangs like a shadow over the Paris Games.

Documentary shows Vitali Klitschko as a doer

The documentary brings you close to the brothers, especially Vitali Klitschko, who was the face of the opposition during the Maidan revolution in 2014 and became mayor of the Ukrainian capital Kiev shortly afterwards. He still is today, even if not everyone is happy with that, as the film also shows. President Volodymyr Selenskyj and the former boxing star are not on good terms with each other, that is well known and is not left out here either, even if Vitali Klitschko prefers to draw attention to the war situation in the country rather than talk about it. Discord within his own country, which he thinks should not be the focus right now.

The older Klitschko (Vitali is 53, Wladimir 48) is portrayed primarily as a doer. As someone who has slept little since the war began, gets things done, is not afraid to travel to the front line himself to bring weapons, or who simply shoots aside an illegally parked car that is causing a traffic jam – and who sacrifices a lot for the sake of his country, including his marriage.

Natalia Yegorova: Politics changed Vitali Klitschko

This was indeed over when the war began, even if nobody knew that at the time, says his now ex-wife Natalia Yegorova (formerly Klitschko) in the documentary. But she also says that her then husband began to change with politics. That she then began to lose her husband, whom she describes as a “Viking” with a “big heart” when describing how they met.

She says that he wants to leave a “big mark” (or perhaps better in English: “big shoes to fill”) on this world, even though he will already go down in history as one of the best boxers in the world. But that is clearly not enough for him, and that is also the impression given by the documentary.

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During the interview with the boxing trainer they have to go into the bunker

Not only were the two Klitschko brothers accompanied in detail – Vitali at his job in Kiev, Wladimir also abroad, for example in Germany, to campaign for more aid for Ukraine – but their environment was also questioned. Vitali Klitschko's ex-wife speaks, and his sons also have their say. The mother of the two ex-boxers visits the documentary makers in her home, and in the Ukrainian boxing studio of Wladimir Klitschko's former trainer, it is impressively shown how a shoot in the middle of a war goes – there is an air raid warning and the film crew has to go into an air raid shelter with the trainer.

Quick cuts between brutal, emotional, shakily shot war scenes make the suffering on the ground clear. Bleeding children, crying women, soldiers at the front who have just lost twelve colleagues. And in the middle of it all: the Klitschkos, especially Vitali Klitschko, who instructs construction workers to rebuild a destroyed house, speaks kind words to desperate people, and so on. The appointments, the deployment, the commitment, it seems never-ending, just like the war.

Will to fight like against Lennox Lewis

The brothers report that discipline, this never-ending desire to quit, was also instilled in them by their father, a proud communist. “He was 'too strong,'” says Vitali Klitschko at one point. Discipline was very important to him, and he is grateful for that in retrospect. That is also part of this documentation: private recordings from the Klitschkos' Soviet childhood and youth, but also videos and pictures from their active boxing days.

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There is Vitali Klitschko's fight against Lennox Lewis in Los Angeles in 2003, which was ultimately stopped for Lewis because Klitschko was bleeding too much. The scenes are hard to watch with all the blood on his face and Natalia Yegorova, then still Klitschko, shaking next to the ring and seeming to pray that it was finally over. But Vitali Klitschko wanted to keep fighting. He already had this never-quit mentality in the boxing ring and took it with him into the war. Vitali Klitschko never went down in his boxing career, which he ended in 2013, and he has no plans to do so now.

Also moments to breathe and laugh

But there are also moments to take a deep breath, and even to laugh, in this film, which shows the Klitschkos as very human. There are funny slips of the tongue from Vitali Klitschko during interviews, there is the mayor of Kiev who says jokingly and threateningly to the people behind the camera: “You made my mother cry, you're in trouble,” and there are the brothers, who joke with each other in the interview and briefly remind you of the Milchschnitte commercials and interviews from better times.

It is clear that they see things differently today. February 24th changed everything, says Wladimir Klitschko. His gold win for Ukraine at the 1996 Olympic Games was “life-changing” at the time, but the war has made medals, awards and much more “so unimportant”. Now it really is a matter of life and death. And his sons also believe that Vitali Klitschko is definitely ready to die for it: they were always afraid for him, that is exactly why, they say. A moving moment, and a moving documentary that gives an insight into life in war and in a state of emergency, through the eyes of the Klitschkos. It is truly their toughest fight.

“Klitschko – “The Hardest Fight” will be streamed on Sky and WOW from September 13th.