Mongol

Films don’t get much more international than this: co-production credits aside, there’s a Japanese lead actor, a Russian director and a Chinese and Mongolian supporting cast. Mongol is a sweeping historical epic in the grand tradition. As the first part of a projected trilogy about the life of Genghis Khan, Mongol covers about twenty years, starting in 1172 when Temudjin – Khan’s original name – is aged nine. It’s an eventful year, encompassing both his choice of a future wife and the murder (by poisoning) of his beloved father. Subsequent formative experiences include capture and humiliation.

The treatment is sometimes corny and it’s frequently over-produced, but it looks fantastic, thanks to a combination of striking landscapes and exotic costumes. The battle scenes are particularly compelling, replete as they are with slow-motion balletic splatter a la Sam Peckinpah. The haunting musical score by Tuomas Kantelinen adds to the rich mix. And Tadanobu Asano – who plays the adult Temudjin – has a tough yet soulful presence. All that said, the whole falls somewhat short of the sum of its parts.

The Mongolian proverb quoted at the beginning of the film says, “Do not scorn a weak cub – he may become the brutal tiger”. Historians would no doubt baulk at the kind of revisionist treatment that pleads mitigating provocation for Genghis Khan’s atrocities, and which tries to show his warm and restrained side. This was, after all, a man who built pyramids of human skulls and at least once destroyed every living thing in a town: babies, cats, dogs, you name it. But taken on its own terms – as a swashbuckling adventure story – Mongol is entertaining.

Filmink 3.5/5