Review of Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007) by Walter C — 18 Apr 2009

By and large a beautiful evocation of the Mongolia of Genghis Khan's time, evoking a sense of a legendary, long-ago time. The battle scenes are cunningly staged, with geysers of blood punctuating the chaos.

Unfortunately, the script is well below the standards of the imagery, fatally lacking any insight as to why Temudgin (Genghis Khan) became a man of such power and influence; Tadanobu Asano does what he can with the limitations of the text, but his Temudgin never seems like a man who would command intense respect and loyalty; yet, throughout the film, other characters give him just that, with little explanation.

Although the actors are mostly quite solid (particularly Sun Honglei as the oddly funny Jamukha, and Sun Ben Hou as a sympathetic monk), the choppy script, jumping wholesale over the years and leaving huge chunks of the story untold, gives them mostly ciphers to work with, and basically fails at its most basic purpose; showing how Temudgin became one of the greatest warriors of all time.