Magic Review: Mongol

Director Sergei Brodov who bought us the highly rated Prisoner of the Mountains (1996) is back with the story/epic of Mongolian conquerer Genghis Khan. After a few years of hit and misses, Bordov has outdone himself with the portrayal of the early life of one of the most notorious rulers ever. I sat through the first 30 minutes of this film trying to figure when Genghis was going to enter film as the movie was focusing on this child/teen named Temujin. To my surprise later I realised that Khan is the Mongolian name for tribal leader or ruler and Genghis means great or almighty. The film which is subtitled is a depiction of Temujins' childhood which involved slavery, betrayal and copious amounts of hardship. As he overcomes his adversity, Bordov does a spectacular job of getting across the revolutionary battle methods and strict code which Temjuin used and lived by in order to see him rise to to the great ruler we all know of today. The cinematography is fascinating  as it is filmed throughout Kazakhistan and parts of Russia which make great country for battles and depiction of tribal life. The film which is set to be the first in a trilogy is set to be an instant classic and although it is around two hours long I think it is fair to say that if the movie had a bigger budget than the $20million it ran off and was in English, it would surely be in the ranks of the first Lord of the Rings (2001) collection.

Magic Rating: 8.7/10