Film

Mongol: The Rise to Power of Genghis Khan (2007)

Director: Sergei Bodrov

Movie review

From Time Out Chicago

So you’ve always wanted to see a movie about the young Genghis Khan, but you despaired that few directors had the grandness of vision to tell the story of the conqueror formerly known as Temudgin. Now Bodrov (of the festival slot-fillers Schizo and Bear’s Kiss) has stepped up to the plate. Learn how the fledgling warrior chose his bride when he was nine and she was ten, and how he fought for love; learn about his early exile and subsequent alliance with a blood brother, who turned out to be a less than reliable partner-in-vanquishing; learn about his dream to unite the nations under a common Mongol dialect.

This international megaproduction—Kazakhstan’s Oscar nominee, although its executive producers include Picturehouse’s Bob Berney—seems evenly split between ethnographic immersion (e.g., 2001’s The Fast Runner and the recent Cannes prizewinner winner Tulpan) and movie-movie biopic; you may find yourself flashing back to both David Lean and Alexander. Admirably credible—in the lead, Japanese superstar Asano looks right at home in a world of muddy steppes and throat singing—the movie suffers from a slack narrative, which goes heavy on both the usual destiny-fate aphorisms (“Do not scorn a weak cub,” the opening title card informs us. “He may become a brutal tiger.”) and equally dull arterial spray.