‘Mongol’ will delight ‘300′ fans willing to brave the Mongolian language and read the subtitles – 4 stars ****

By W. H. Bourne
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/21/08 – “If this is such an awful man, who’s accused of killing millions, how did it happen?” says ‘Mongol’ director Sergei Bodrov. “How did he become Genghis Khan?”

“In our schoolbooks, Genghis Khan was portrayed as a monster,” says Bodrov recalling his education in Russia. “The books were products of the time, and the depictions were pretty awful and simplistic. Russians lived under Mongolian rule for around 200 years.”

Bodrov read ‘The Legend of the Black Arrow,’ a book about the Mongols and the Turks by the eminent Russian historian Lev Gumilev. The book offered a more nuanced portrait of Genghis Khan, inspiring Bodrov to learn more about the man born as Temudgin in 1162.

“I’m always interested to take a famous character and dig a little, to take a cliché and find what happened in real life,” says Bodrov. “His childhood is really an unknown story. You learn that he was an orphan. He was a slave. Everybody tried to kill him. His wife was kidnapped. He got her back when she was pregnant. For me, immediately, it’s the beginning of a very compelling story about an extraordinary character.”

“A nine-year-old boy picks out his bride, and though he doesn’t know it yet, his life is changed forever,” says Bodrov. Bodrov says the untold story of Ghengis Kahn’s early years, of Temudgin and his first wife Borte, will be a revelation for viewers.

With battle scenes reminiscent of ‘300′, award-winning Russian director Sergei Bodrov illuminates the early years of Genghis Khan in a stunning historical epic. While the characters and the drama of ‘Mongol’ are very compelling, it’s the fighting and action sequences which keep audiences on the edge of their seats.

‘Mongol’ benefits from the collaboration of Academy Award-winning ‘Matrix’editor Zach Staenberg and ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ BAFTA-winning editor Valdís Óskarsdóttir. Oscar-winning Dutch director of photography Rogier Stoffers, known for ‘Disturbia’, beautifully captures the scenery of Kazakhstan as well as the action packed battle sequences.

Still smarting a bit from it’s depiction in ‘Borat’, Kazakhstan offers ‘Mongol’ as the official submission in the Foreign Language Film category for the 80th Academy Awards.

‘Mongol’
Running Time: 2 hr. 6 min.
Limited Release Date: June 6th, 2008 (USA)
Expansion Release Date: June 20th, 2008 (USA)
Rated R for sequences of bloody warfare.
Distributors: Warner Brothers/Picturehouse Entertainment (USA)
Language: Mongolian (with English subtitles)