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Mongol

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Mongol (2008)

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Reviews Counted:98

Fresh:85

Rotten:13

Average Rating:7.1/10

Consensus: The sweeping Mongol mixes romance, family drama, and enough flesh-ripping battle scenes to make sense of Ghenghis Khan's legendary stature.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for sequences of bloody warfare.

Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Jun 6, 2008 Limited

Box Office: $5,621,596

Synopsis: Award-winning Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains) illuminates the life and legend of Genghis Khan in his stunning historical epic, Mongol. Based on leading scholarly... Award-winning Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains) illuminates the life and legend of Genghis Khan in his stunning historical epic, Mongol. Based on leading scholarly accounts and written by Bodrov and Arif Aliyev, Mongol delves into the dramatic and harrowing early years of the ruler who was born as Temudgin in 1162. As it follows Temudgin from his perilous childhood to the battle that sealed his destiny, the film paints a multidimensional portrait of the future conqueror, revealing him not as the evil brute of hoary stereotype, but as an inspiring, fearless and visionary leader. Mongol shows us the making of an extraordinary man, and the foundation on which so much of his greatness rested: his relationship with his wife, Borte, his lifelong love and most trusted advisor.

Filmed in the very lands that gave birth to Genghis Khan, Mongol transports us back to a distant and exotic period in world history; to a nomad's landscape of endless space, climatic extremes and ever-present danger. In a performance of powerful stillness and subtlety, celebrated young Japanese actor Asano Tadanobu (Zatoichi, Last Life in the Universe) captures the inner fire that enabled a hunted boy to become a legendary conqueror. Asano's achievement is matched by those of his co-stars, including the radiant newcomer Khulan Chuluun as Temudgin's courageous, spirited wife Borte, and the Chinese actor Honglei Sun (The Road Home) as the Mongol chieftain Jamukha, Temudgin's dearest friend and deadliest enemy. Masterfully blending action and emotion against some of the most arresting terrain on earth, Bodrov delivers an exciting and awe-inspiring tale of survival and triumph, and a love story for the ages. --© Picturehouse
[More]

Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Honglei Sun, Khulan Chuluun, Odnyam Odsuren

Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Honglei Sun, Khulan Chuluun, Odnyam Odsuren, Aliy A, Ba Sen, Amadu Mamadakov, Ba Yin, He Qi, Sun Ben Hou, Ji Ri Mu Tu

Director: Sergei Bodrov

Director: Sergei Bodrov
Screenwriter: Arif Aliyev, Sergei Bodrov
Producer: Sergey Selyanov, Sergei Bodrov, Anton Melnik
Composer: Tuomas Kantelinen
Studio: Picturehouse

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Release:

Oct 14, 2008

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Reviews for Mongol

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1 - 20 (sorted by rotten rating)
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Lacking great themes and inner depth, Mongol is just another galloping wondershow of ice blue skies and rocky plains, a light diversion with delusions of grandeur

Full Review Source: I.E. Weekly | comment Comment
06/06/08
Amy Nicholson
Amy Nicholson
I.E. Weekly

This would have been one of the greatest all time epics, but there were some major gaps in the story.

Full Review Source: Sin Magazine | comment Comment
10/17/08
Austin Kennedy
Austin Kennedy
Sin Magazine

This revisionist history of the early life of Ghengis Khan leaves one baffled and unconvinced.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment 1 Comment
06/06/08
Barbara Goslawski
Barbara Goslawski
Boxoffice Magazine

I'd rather have seen the sequel.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | comment Comment
06/06/08
Bob Strauss
Bob Strauss
Los Angeles Daily News

For a motion picture about man who changed the world on his own terms, one would think his life story would be a riveting experience, not something that requires a pot of coffee and occasional magazine breaks to enjoy.

Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com | comment Comment
06/05/08
Brian Orndorf
Brian Orndorf
BrianOrndorf.com

Relates the story of Genghis Khan's early years in a plodding, uninspired fashion that doesn't bode well for the next two entries in a planned trilogy.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
06/10/08
Frank Scheck
Frank Scheck
Hollywood Reporter

If a hero is to deserve this much spectacle, he ought to be at least a little bit interesting.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
06/05/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

While fur-clad pillaging sounds fun enough, a Crouching Tiger–style ponderousness hollows out this largely Russian-produced dud.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
06/05/08
Joshua Rothkopf
Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out New York

Combining the intelligence of an action movie with the excitement of an art-house release makes Mongol as dry as summer in the Gobi Desert.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment 2 Comments
06/06/08
Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Asano's Khan is a hero in the classic mold, and the portrayal is riveting. Not entirely so the film, however, which concludes with a lengthy endnote as though it were Steppe Wars IV: A New Hope and Equal Plunder for All Men.

Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
06/20/08
Marc Savlov
Marc Savlov
Austin Chronicle

It must have been a pretty weak year for subtitled fare if the Oscar voters sought to praise this inert, inept epic.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment 2 Comments
07/05/08
Phil Hall
Phil Hall
Film Threat

More impressed with its own olden days ready-to-rumble, flesh-ripping Far Eastern beatdowns, than fleshing out with any depth just who these characters were and how they struggled to exist back then. History as a scenic but dramatically sparse travelogue.

Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | comment 3 Comments
05/26/08
Prairie Miller
Prairie Miller
NewsBlaze

Give Mongol’s makers credit for taking advantage of the spectacular scenery and creating an almost documentary reality regarding life among Mongolia’s nomads. But as storytelling the film goes nowhere slowly.

Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | comment Comment
06/20/08
Robert W. Butler
Robert W. Butler
Kansas City Star

Mongol is a big, ponderous epic, its beautifully composed landscape shots punctuated by thundering hooves and bloody, slow-motion battle sequences.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
06/05/08
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Japanese indie idol Asano smolders as maverick Temudgin [Khan].

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
09/19/07
Alissa Simon
Alissa Simon
Variety

A thoroughly rousing hunk of celluloid, a war saga that blends the sturdiest conventions of old-fashioned heroic storytelling with a few pixilated battle enhancements — check out the soaring blood globs — of the kind that spattered across 300.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
06/27/08
Amy Biancolli
Amy Biancolli
Houston Chronicle

shows a merging of the random vagaries of time with the divine machinery of myth, to create a truly rounded picture of the factors that can turn a flesh-and-blood individual into a living legend on the very crest of history.

Full Review Source: musicOMH.com | comment Comment
06/02/08
Anton Bitel
Anton Bitel
musicOMH.com

Mongol is an impressive epic that also captures intimate moments in the early life of the Mongolian leader.

Full Review Source: KPBS.org | comment Comment
06/20/08
Beth Accomando
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

The film, a foreign-language Oscar nominee, is epic in scope, in scale, in story, in everything. It has as much action as any brain-dead Hollywood blockbuster, but Mongol also has heart and intelligence.

Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | comment Comment
06/19/08
Bill Goodykoontz
Bill Goodykoontz
Arizona Republic

Mongol is a Far East Braveheart, charged with the same sense of pseudo-history, movie heroics and inspirational grandeur.

Full Review Source: Christianity Today | comment Comment
06/06/08
Brandon Fibbs
Brandon Fibbs
Christianity Today
 
 
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The 14th Annual Critics' Choice Awards were given on January 8, 2009, to honor the finest achievements in 2008 filmmaking. A list of nominees follows below, with winners in bold: More...

October 22, 2008: More impressed with its own olden days ready-to-rumble, flesh-ripping Far Eastern beatdowns, than fleshing out with any depth just who these characters were and how they struggled to exist back then. History as a scenic but dramatically sparse travelogue. Opens in new window
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