This movie is amazing and I'm shocked that it only has a 5.9 on IMDb. Everyone I know who has seen this movie (mostly German friends... I'm American) including myself love this movie. It's a long film but I really enjoyed it and you can't exactly tell the story of a King's life in 90 minutes. All of the cast were excellent actors and really had you believing they were the characters they were portraying. The costumes were great and not overdone or cheesy like a lot of historical films make the mistake of doing. As for the story itself: I'm from the USA and raised in public schools all my life so it shouldn't be any surprise that I was never taught about Ludwig II. In fact, this film is the only reason I know his name. After watching the film I actually did some research on Ludwig and realized pretty much everything from the film was based on actual events and solid facts of Ludwig's life... a refreshing change from the typical more-fiction-than-fact "historical dramas" released in my country. I wish I could buy the film on DVD and hopefully someday that will be an option.