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

Director: Sergei Bodrov

Time Out rating

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3 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

This is Genghis: The Early Years, as young tribal warrior Temudgin – the boy who would be Khan – grows to manhood on the remote plains of Central Asia. He fends off enemies, avenges his father’s death and finds true love (and family) with pugnacious bride Borte, before being kidnapped by slave-trading adversaries and unleashing the world-conquering warlord within.

Despite some necessary embellishment, Sergei Bodrov’s expansive biopic hews close to the established facts, painting a vividly accurate portrait of life in this unforgiving region: you can smell the yurts and yak dung. The widescreen landscape photography is often ravishing, grey sky and green grass blurring in soft washes of misty morning pallor as sunlight creeps across the steppes.

But the screenplay’s insistence on depicting only the first two decades of the Khan’s life handicaps the narrative. There’s precious little action before the final, frustratingly truncated battle sequence, which begins well with epic shots of massed horsemen thundering across the screen, but becomes somewhat farcical when weather stops play just as things are getting interesting (it turns out all Mongol warriors are terrified of thunder).

There’s also scant effort made to get inside the head of this ruthless leader: we’re asked to like Temudgin, to respect him as warrior, friend and family man, but our understanding of his motivation remains sketchy. These tribesmen are a taciturn lot, measurable only by their actions, which tend to the extreme. Still, ‘Mongol’ remains a gracefully mounted, stunningly photographed historical account, fascinating in its attention to detail if somewhat unengaging in its story and characters.

Author: Tom Huddleston

Time Out London Issue 1972, 4 – 10 June 2008

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User reviews of this film

kamna said...

Posted on Aug 18 2008 15:40 Stunning visuals and authentic landscapes make this epic movie worth a watch. Thank God Ghengis Khan does not talk with an American accent.The costumes, rituals and manners have been meticulously researched and reproduced. I think anybody who understands the clan system will not be looking for any reason for Ghengis Khan always believing that he was born to be "Khan" and also for pulling out all the stops to achieve his birthright. The director has beautifully captured the soul of such a leader - the scenes where Temudgin is in a cage, knowing and believing with stoic certainty that he is destined to lead, are the essence of the movie. As the old man says, "do not be afraid" is what the whole movie is about.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Jun 11 2008 12:23 SPEED ,SINS AND SEXUAL SKILLS -Mongols resuurected their nation under a great genius ,Genghis khan almost 9 centuries ago but this is a superstitious myth which tries to please the japanese and chinese audience into shelling out the fee for a ticket .
The linguistic and historical inaccuracies asunder ,it is miscast as much as wooden actors masquerading ,most of whom are not remotely mongol,making it a farce.
The man who led to a phenomena with the ultimate destruction of the Abbaside Caliphate by Halaku,his grandson is portrayed as a weird,stoic,expressionless nincompoop who is at the mercy of his wife and escapes both murder and imprisonment secondary to her sexual indiscretions with his opponents .
The direction ,cinematography and the soundtrack are brilliant but cannot obcure the multiple flaws,which glare at you from the very start as Temugdin is caught and escapes from Targutai in repititive and nauseatingly silly encores.
Borte the wife is played as the woman behind the sucessful man who manages to beget 2 kids from his foes and the love still blossoms,the motivation here is just as obsure as the rise of khan from an escaped tagutan slave to someone who defeats jamukhan .
The only reason to see this is good editing and direction which masks the poor acting and the camera itself which does'nt indulge in digital tricks and for once the Dreaded CGI is notably omitted in a modern epic ,which makes this refreshing.
I still cannot decipher how this and beaufort got nominated for best oscars as they were both obviously flawed and if they describe the human condition today or in any era ,then god alone can help humanity.
I am very sceptical that any God ,even Tengri
[mongol thunder god]presented as a white siberian wolf can achieve that miracle .
The mongols triumphed for one reason alone they could ride their horses with an alacrity and skill which made them faster than thunder ,they took their opponents by surprise as they could eat ,sleep and even shoot an arrow with precision from the horseback,this movie misses those targets by a wide margin and though it is good cinema worth watching,it's not even near to the genius it represents .
Bordov and Arif need a better script if they are planning a sequel and definitely a better cast.
The previous attempt in the sixties with Omar SHARIF seems to have been an inspiration for this silly if somewhat surreally beautiful adventure with some stunning images and a mysytical and mysterious monk who can cast accurate prophesy about the khan but not himself,which is where this movie stumbles between the wide chiasm of reality and ancient mythology .
usman khawaja

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Sig said...

Posted on Jun 07 2008 21:15 I was expecting a Hollywood visual pap, so was pleasantly surprised to find it beautifully filmed with sub-titles. The review here is being a little unfair as it stands above what comes out of the USA machine. The battle scenes were more like 300 in fur, with Sin City blood overlays. But kids with knives in their pants will come out respecting the Mongol hordes - let's hope it doesn't give them any new ideas.

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