Mongol (Sergei Bodrov, 2007)
On 35mm at the Piedmont Cinema with Lucía and Ben on 29 June, 2008, at 21:55.
The story of Mongol is interesting (and I was lucky enough to come into the film with no knowledge of the legends of Genghis Khan), although I got a little bored of the mystical aspects of the film (it wouldn’t have been too out of place for one of the characters to say “he is the one!”). Tadanobu Asano is very much his usual self, with his stoic Mongol leader-type characteristics rolled out a little bit to fit him into the character. I don’t know Mongolian, but it didn’t sound quite right coming out of his mouth. I’m quite impressed that he managed to pull it off, however. Khulan Chuluun, playing Temüdjin’s wife Börte, is beautiful and charismatic and she managed to steal the show from him a little bit. The fighting scenes were nice, although in the larger battle scene I felt at times as though I was watching a real-time strategy game played out in front of me. The beautiful landscapes of Inner Mongolia were captivating and I can’t imagine anyone writing about this film without mentioning them. How on earth did the characters find each other? As a whole, the film wasn’t particularly memorable, but many of the little details really caught me while I was watching it. Anyways, I’m done.
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