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Mongol Movie Review

Mongol is a 2007 international historical biopic directed by Sergei Bodrov and starring Tadanobu Asano. It’s a film that is a spectacle, but a problematic one for sure.

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“Don’t tell anyone we went to war over a woman“

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The story recounts the early life of Genghis Khan who was a slave before going on to conquer half the world in 1206. The movie is concerned mostly with his childhood and his young years, focusing first and foremost on his bringing up, his marriage and his tumultuous relationship with his blood brother. The latter gets the most screen time for obvious reasons as this type of story is ripe for epic film treatment, and it never disappointed in that regard.

But my personal gripe with the movie is its numerous historical inaccuracies and its emphasis on such a small part of his life. That felt quaint and archaic for a biopic to focus on early years, but we should all give them some slack as they clearly wanted to make a trilogy that unfortunately never happened due to weak box office receipts for this film.

The romance worked quite a bit. It was interesting and powerful. I liked the love interest and how she was developed. Tamujin and Jamukha are both very well realized and their conflict was the core of the movie. Others are less memorable, but they all serve their purpose. This varied ethnic cast consisting of Chinese, Mongolian and Russian actors did an excellent job with everybody delivering in their respective roles.

Mongol is also a truly spectacular audio-visual cinematic experience. The score is sweeping and majestic, the cinematography is excellent and the movie is actually very well shot not in the vistas of the country alone, but also in the battle sequences, which are for once engaging to watch and easy to follow.

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The direction and editing are also pretty good, but I just wish that the dialogue was stronger and that the movie was more sophisticated in terms of politics and history. There isn’t a lot going on here as everything is touched on surface level, which really bothered me as I prefer more brainy period pieces.