Mongol

I'm of the vintage that my familiarity with the legend of Genghis Khan comes from the illustrated story as told in Jackanory-style on Blue Peter by Valerie Singleton. That tale used to put you on the wrong foot by starting off about a little nine-year-old Mongolian lad called Temujin (Temudgin in the movie subtitles) who had all kinds of trouble after his father was assassinated, but grew up into one of the greatest warlords the world has ever seen, trashing half a continent in the 13th Century.

Genghis Khan has always been portrayed as a bloodthirsty savage by history. In a quirk of circumstance, the old adage about history being written by the victors doesn't hold true for the Mongols - they had no tradition of writing down their history, relying instead on oral traditions. That has meant that we know Genghis Khan through the written histories of the people he conquered, not least the Russians, who spent nearly 200 years under Mongol rule. This movie puts forward what could be considered a revisionist viewpoint. One of the key inspirations and reference sources for the screenplay was one of the few semi-contemporary accounts of the story actually written by the Mongols themselves - The Secret History Of The Mongols. The book is actually the oldest surviving literary work in Mongolian, written in 1227 for the Mongol Royal Family although the surviving manuscripts are Chinese transcriptions made in the 14th Century rather than the original.

The movie is a 2007 German-Russian-Kazakhstan-Mongolian co-production, intended to be the first instalment in a trilogy charting the life of the great Mongol leader. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film from Kazakhstan for the 2007 Academy Awards®

I came to this movie expecting to see something epic and I wasn't disappointed. Beautifully shot in 2.35:1 and presented here in anamorphic widescreen, this is old-fashioned epic moviemaking. It is doubly amazing given the final budget for the movie was only $20million which wouldn't cover the catering budget on some Hollywood movies. Co-written and directed by Sergei Bodrov, the movie boasts a literal cast of thousands, led by the vaguely messianic figure of Tadanobu Asano as the adult Temujin.

Although the picture picks up pace once Temujin is in adulthood, the first part of the picture is doubly striking for the performance of child actor Odnyam Odsuren as the young Temujin - one moment picking a nine-year-old future bride at the behest of his father, the next captured and sold into slavery after his father's poisoning.

The story is as much that of Temudgin's bride Borte, who he picks when he is nine years old when his father takes him to visit the neighbouring Merkit tribe. The two of them are portrayed as star-crossed lovers, encountering each other at key times in Temujin's life. Borte is most definitely the great woman standing behind the great man.

The movie has violent bits - very violent bits with lots of squirty (CGI?) blood in the Quentin Tarantino (ahem) vein. The battle sequences give Peter Jackson's Massive generated rucks a run for their money with scimitar-wielding horsemen riding at each other at full tilt and opening arteries left, right and centre.

The movie comes in the original Mongolian with burned in English subtitles

There is a making of featurette, trailer and two "coming attractions" trailers.