Review of Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007) by Ces . — 04 Apr 2009

Mongol takes on the subject of Genghis Khan, the most successful/terrible warlord to have ever lived. He united the Mongol tribes and went on a rampage of death and destruction across Asia and Europe that puts Hitler to shame. But while there have been scores of movies featuring Hitler in some form or another, the subject of Genghis Khan is rarely touched.

Mongol focuses on Genghis Khan?s (or Temudgin?s) early years from the time that his father was killed to the time that he united the Mongolian tribes and turned them into the most successful and brutal fighting force that ever lived. There is obviously an incredible story in just this history alone; but unfortunately, Mongol fails to tell it.

The theme of Mongol is that Temudgin had a rough time in his early years. Temudgin?s father was killed and then Temudgin was kicked out of his tribe and hunted like an animal all the way into adulthood. And finally Temudgin came back to his family and formed his own tribe of what seemed like 50 people only to be defeated and sent to China to be a slave. All of this took about an hour and 40 minutes leaving only 20 minutes in this movie for Temudgin to go from being locked in a cage in China to uniting the tribes of Mongolia.

So how did Temudgin manage to bring together the various tribes of Mongolia in just 20 minutes of screen time? Actually it took just 10 seconds. In one scene Temudgin is running off by himself after being freed from Chinese slavery. And in the next scene he has what seemed like over a hundred thousand troops ready to fight the final battle against a force of what appeared to be a million enemy troops. No explanation is given for how this happened. I won?t give away how Temudgin wins this lopsided battle, but it?s a joke.

Mongol gets high marks for having beautiful visuals from start to finish, but its disregard for history and lack of plot cohesion left me disappointed.