The Movie "Mongol" . . . how is it?

To my great surprise, "Mongol" has shown up in a theater 25 minutes away from me (previously I was going to have to drive 2 hours . . . no thanks.)

So how is it? Even a 25 minute drive gives me pause unless it's darn good.

It's pretty good. It's definitely not great- there's some pacing issues, a sort of strange narrative structure, and an overall sense of redundancy with other historical epics. BRAVEHEART, THE PATRIOT, GLADIATOR...they all follow a very similar pattern.

The biggest strength to me was the portrayal of Steppe culture- everything is presented in a very descriptive, easily comprehensive way. Marriage customs, tribal in-fighting, property dispute, food and drink, fealty...everything is very nicely detailed. The costume and production design were absolutely outstanding and the actors were mostly very good. Some great music (yes, throat singing), very nice cinematography, and overall a nicely produced film.

The thing is, the film covers the early life of Temujin so if you want to see Mongol hordes sweeping across Eurasia it's not really there. It's more of the "formative" years. Which is interesting, but it seems like we only really get to the good stuff at the very end (which culminates in a really awesome battle). Not that I wanted to see wall-to-wall action, but it did seem to run slow.

Apparently it's a trilogy...the second one should be more focused on Genghis Khan's campaigns.

I must have missed this when it was on. I saw the trailer but never saw it advertised at the cinema. It sounded right up my street. The BBC had a great series called Heroes and Villains running a couple of months ago, which were docudramas covering Napoleon, Attila the Hun, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, Cortez and Tokugawa Ieyasu. This sounded like a more detailed version of one of those programmes. There was a good film about steppe culture called Himalaya a few years back. It was a very simple tale about peasant life but worth watching. Also, Devils on the Doorstep although that is set in China.