Mongol
By: Amy Nicholson
No matter how many battles, hero stories are written in short hand. A child—a boy—has a parent killed and an enemy vowed before manhood. His lifelong quest for vengeance brings him to glory, though he stirs up a dozen more betrayers and, if he’s lucky, a great love. The details change: horses are swapped for tanks, swords for guns. But we always like our conquers to be kicked around before cracking skulls. Mongolia’s grand entry into the epic territory that was recently plundered by Nomad, about Kazakhstan’s Mansur, and India’s Jodhaa Akbar which trumpeted Akbar the Great, boasts a bigger name than both: Genghis Khan. Or as he’s known here, Temudjin (Tadanobu Asano), whose fight to avenge his father (Ba Sen) and reclaim his feisty bride Borte (Khulan Chuluun) steels him to conquer damn near everywhere by the ending credits. Like most historical portraits of great, but polarizing men, director Sergei Bodrov and his co-writer Arif Aliyev have made 1190’s most famous man nicer and duller—a dignified slave who believes in true love (or at least a woman with strong legs and narrow eyes, the better to resist evil spirits). Genghis is famous for powerful armies and powerful sperm; even today 8% of Mongolians have traces of him in their DNA. It’s a sly joke that the two kids Borte bears him in the film are likely not his, just the faultless scions of a wild west plains culture that swaps women like war stories. Lacking great themes and inner depth, Mongol is just another galloping wondershow of ice blue skies and rocky plains, a light diversion with delusions of grandeur that seems harmless until you realize you’ve just watched a thousand men stabbed by spears. (Amy Nicholson)
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