So “Mongol” was a nominee last year for the best foreign-language film Oscar? Yeah, that sounds about right.
The Oscar voters tend to favor foreign films that are as much like Hollywood as possible, and “Mongol” is a straight-ahead costume picture with glossy production values and large-scale battle scenes. It’s also a Famous Person Movie — in this case, Genghis Khan.
The hero’s journey we watch isn’t about a guy named Genghis Khan, however. That name would not be bestowed until later. This is the growing-up of Temudgin (played as an adult by Tadanobu Asano) amidst the vast steppes of Mongolia.
The story is taken from various facts and legends about Temudgin, and covers his early betrothal in childhood, the underhanded death of his father, and his own imprisonment as a slave. It’s quite a yarn, and includes a sweeping love story for our hairy hero.
“Mongol” is directed by Sergei Bodrov, the Russian who put his name to last year’s feeble “Nomad” but whose track record before that was pretty good. Bodrov shot the film in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, and the scenic appeal of those vast empty places is not to be denied.
As a popcorn movie, “Mongol” contains plenty of buttery flavoring. There are narrow escapes, grand embraces and thundering hordes.
There’s movie star appeal too; charismatic Tadanobu Asano is sometimes called Japan’s version of Johnny Depp. Not that you can tell here, as he looks pretty scraggly beneath the yak hair and the grit.
But hey, that was Genghis Khan all over. Opinions about the man who conquered a vast amount of Asia in the 12th century are mixed, but “Mongol” doesn’t delve too deeply into the possible dark side of the legend, preferring to stick to an against-all-odds saga, with flavors of cowboy and samurai movies thrown in.
Speaking of cowboys, “Mongol” must be considered an improvement over 1956’s “The Conqueror,” which starred John Wayne as Genghis Khan. I love the Duke, but let’s just say “Mongolian warlord” was never meant to be his job description.
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