Mongol

Mongolian/120 Minutes/2007/Rated R

Mongol is a fascinating melting pot. Written and Directed by a Russian (Sergei Bodrov) with a Japanese main actor and all the dialog in Mongolian this 2007 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film was a triumph of multicultural filmmaking. Unfortunately the film doesn't quite live up to its promise.

Mongol follows the rise of lowly Temudgin who grows from a son of a tribal leader into a slave and finally ruler of all the Mongolian hordes. We know him today as Genghis Kahn. As interesting as this story may be, in the movie it isn't told all that effectively. The story feels episodic and tends to spend long stretches of film focusing on parts of Temudgin's life that are rather bland (he spends twenty minutes in the film sitting in a cage) and skips over ones that would be fascinating (instead of showing him building his army he just shows up in a sequence with his horde ready to go).

The acting is great. Temudgin is played by one of my favorite Asian actors, Tadanobu Asano (Ichi the Killer), and is instantly believable. His long suffering crafty wife, Borte (Khulan Chuluun), and blood brother Jamukha (Honglei Sun) all turn in great performances.

The cinematography and direction are some of the best I've seen in a while. The open fields, cracked deserts and rocky wastelands bring to mind John Ford and his use of Monument Valley. The environment is truly a spectacle and is alone worth the price of admission. There are some really unique camera angles too such as a POV shot from a sword and well assembled large scale battles.

The downside to all of this is that the writing is somewhat lacking. The script feels episodic and a majority of the movie features Temudgin being captured, running away and being captured again. The film frequently infers that he is watched over and favored by the gods with some inexplicable happenings (he falls into an icy pool and doesn't freeze, his chains mysteriously come off) but this feels like excessive mythologizing and smells of bad writing.

Once Temudgin decides to become the great leader of the Mongol people his army just appears with no explanation of how he convinced a band of men to join him. What are the roots of his dread-inspiring hooded troops with dual swords? The final scroll talks about a battle where a whole kingdom is laid to waste but we are never shown what happens. Add to all of this an anti-climactic final battle and you have a film that never comes together as more than the sum of its parts.

In the film's defense it was made on a relatively low budget ($20 Million) and Bodrov squeezes every dime out of the money and puts it on screen. As this is the first of a supposed trilogy perhaps the sequels will be a little more meaty, but as a standalone feature Mongol fails to live up to its potential. Grudgingly recommended for some great cinematography and acting.

Rated R for Sequences of Bloody Warfare