Review of Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007) by Tobias E — 25 Jun 2011

Some critics have compared Mongol to the scale of Lord of the Rings. I think that's still a bit of an overstatement - especially since the story focusses on the time before Ghengis Khan started to conquer the known world.

Still, the story is very interesting. An artistic decision I like a lot is that all dialog was shot in local languages - 90% of it in Mongolian and some Chinese. The production also recruited a lot of the cast locally and found a gorgeous female lead who delivered a great performance despite not being a trained actor.

The visual effects, props and costumes seem to have been done with the same attention to detail as in Lord of the Rings. On top of that, the locations in Inner Mongolia are just amazingly beautiful. I have no idea how accurate the historic details of the story are but they've made it look very epic and convincing.