Mongol

Rating:

* * * *

Verdict:

Epic in scale, but often intimate in focus, and with less blood and more plot than you might expect.

Genghis Khan's name has become synonymous with bloodthirstiness but the story of the Mongol leader who conquered half the world was more than murder and mayhem. Historians now agree that he was a skilled diplomat and wise and  compassionate leader - though he would not qualify as a pacifist.

This epic, financed in Russia and Kazakhstan, is film-making on the scale of its subject. It is reported to be the first in a trilogy - it ends abruptly in 1206 just as the hero, born Temudgin, has united the warring factions of his vast country under his banner and taken the name by which   he's known.

For all the fierceness of its few battle sequences - complete with faintly comical sprays of pink blood - this is at heart a love story. We meet Temudgin as a nine-year-old being taken by his pragmatic father to be betrothed to a girl from a rival clan. En route he meets the feisty Borte, one year his senior, who informs him that

she

should be his bride and that's that.

The film charts the many obstacles Temudgin must overcome before he can claim Borte as an adult woman: plots to murder him, improbable escapes from incarceration, the forging (and breaking) of alliances and enough fierce battle sequences to keep action fans amused.

The sumptuous cinematography takes in, with equal skill, stunning landscapes (of inner Mongolia, in northwest China, and Kazakhstan) and the details, such as fabrics and weaponry, of the quite wonderful production design. And the performances are well-modulated: Asano, a Japanese star, has real presence in the main role and Sun, a Chinese actor, brings just the right amount of self-mocking charm to the role of Jamukha, Temudgin's blood brother who becomes his implacable enemy. Complete with a lush romantic score and some fantastic horsemanship and it's an old-fashioned historical epic which delivers everything it promises.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Tadanobu Asano, Honglei Sun, Khulan Chuluun

Director:

Sergei Bodrov

Running time:

124 mins

Rating:

R16 (violence)

Language:

In Mongolian with English subtitles

Screening:

Berkeley Mission Bay, Bridgeway, Hoyts, Lido, Rialto, SkyCity