Mongol (film)

Director Sergei Bodrov at the 66th Venice Film Festival

The premise of Mongol is the story of Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who founded the Mongol Empire, which ruled expansive areas of Eurasia. The film depicts the early life of Temüjin, not as an evil war-mongering brute, but rather an inspiring visionary leader. Director Bodrov noted that "Russians lived under Mongolian rule for around 200 years" and that "Genghis Khan was portrayed as a monster". During the 1990s, Bodrov read a book by Russian historian Lev Gumilev entitled The Legend of the Black Arrow, which offered a more disciplined view of the Mongol leader and influenced Bodrov to create a film project about the warrior.

Bodrov spent several years researching the aspects of his story, discovering that Khan was an orphan, a slave and a combatant whom everyone tried to kill. He found difficulty in preparing the screenplay for the film due to the fact that no contemporary Mongol biography existed. The only Mongol history from the era is The Secret History of Mongols, written for the Mongol royal family some time after Genghis Khan's death in AD 1227. Author Gumilev had used the work as a historical reference and a work of significant literature. Casting for the film took place worldwide, including Mongolia, China, Russia, and in Los Angeles. Speaking on the choice of Tadanobu Asano to portray Temüjin, Bodrov commented that although it might have seemed odd to cast a Japanese actor in the role, he explained that the Mongol ruler was seen by many Japanese as one of their own. Bodrov said, "The Japanese had a very famous ancient warrior who disappeared, and they think he went to Mongolia and became Genghis Khan. He's a national hero, Genghis Khan. Mongolians can claim he's Mongolian, but the Japanese, they think they know who he is." Bodrov felt casting actor Sun Honglei as Jamukha was a perfect mix of "gravity and humor" for the role. Describing the character interaction between Asano and Honglei, he noted "They're completely different people, Temüjin and Jamukha, but they have a strong relationship, strong feelings between them." Aside from the Chinese and Japanese actors for those roles, the rest of the cast were Mongolian. It marked the first time a tale of Genghis Khan would be acted by Asians, this in contrast to such Hollywood and European attempts like the 1956 movie flop The Conqueror and the 1965 film Genghis Khan with Omar Sharif.

The film was initially intended to be shot in Mongolia, but the plans caused much protest in the country, as many Mongolians feared that it would not correctly portray their people and their national hero.[7] As a consequence, shooting was moved to the Chinese autonomous region Inner Mongolia and to Kazakhstan.

The character Temüjin, dressed in Mongolian warrior garb

Filming began in 2005, lasting 25 weeks and taking place in China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. Production designer Dashi Namdakov helped to recreate the pastoral lifestyle of the nomadic tribesmen. Namdakov is originally from a Russian region which borders Mongolia and is home to many ethnic Mongols. Bodrov remarked, "Dashi has the Mongol culture in his bones and knows how to approach this material." To help create some of the horse-mounted stunt sequences, Bodrov called upon seasoned stuntmen from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, whom he was familiar with from the production of Nomad. Describing some of the stunt work, Bodrov claimed: "Not a single horse was hurt on this film. There's a line in the movie, when young Jamukha tells Temüjin, 'For Mongol, horse is more important than woman.' And that's how it is with the Kazakh and Kyrgyz stunt people. They took very good care of the horses and were very conscientious." Bodrov collaborated on the film with editors Zach Staenberg and Valdís Óskarsdóttir.

In the United States, the film premiered in cinemas on 6 June 2008. During its opening weekend, the film opened in 22nd place grossing $135,326 in business showing at five locations.[2] The film's revenue dropped by 17% in its second week of release, earning $112,212. For that particular weekend, the film fell to 25th place screening in five theaters. During the film's final release week in theaters, Mongol opened in a distant 80th place with $11,503 in revenue.[9] The film went on to top out domestically at $5,705,761 in total ticket sales through a 14-week theatrical run. Internationally, the film took in an additional $20,821,749 in box office business for a combined worldwide total of $26,527,510.[2] For 2008 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 167.[10]

Following its cinematic release in theaters, the Region 1 Code widescreen edition of the film was released on DVD in the United States on 14 October 2008. Special features for the DVD include scene selections, subtitles in English and Spanish, and subtitles in English for the hearing-impaired.[11]

The widescreen high-definition Blu-ray Disc version of the film was also released on 14 October 2008. Special features include; scene selections and subtitles in English and Spanish.[12] A supplemental viewing option for the film in the media format of video on demand is currently available too.[13]

Among mainstream critics in the U.S., the film received mostly positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 87% of 104 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 7.12 out of 10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "The sweeping Mongol mixes romance, family drama, and enough flesh-ripping battle scenes to make sense of Ghenghis Khan's legendary stature."[14] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 to critics' reviews, the film received a score of 74 based on 27 reviews, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".[15] However, the film was criticized in Mongolia due to its factual errors and historical inaccuracies.[16]

Claudia Puig of USA Today said the film "has a visceral energy with powerful battle sequences and also scenes of striking and serene physical beauty." Noting a flaw, she did comment that Mongol might have included "one battle too many." Although overall, she concluded the film was "an exotic saga that compels, moves and envelops us with its grand and captivating story."[17]

Jonathan Kiefer, writing in the Sacramento News & Review, said "At once sweeping and intimately confidential, with durably magnetic performances by Japan's Asano Tadanobu as the adored warlord and China's Honglei Sun as Jamukha, his blood brother and eventual enemy, Mongol, a 2007 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee, has to be by far the best action epic of 12th- and 13th-century Asian nomads you'll see". He emphatically believed Bodrov's film was "both ancient and authentic." He added that it was "commendably unhurried, and the scope swells up in a way that feels organic to a character-driven story".[18]

Equally impressed, Walter Addiego in the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote that the film offers "everything you would want from an imposing historical drama: furious battles between mass armies, unquenchable love between husband and wife, blood brothers who become deadly enemies, and many episodes of betrayal and treachery". Concerning cinematography, he believed the film included "plenty of haunting landscapes, gorgeously photographed by Sergei Trofimov on location in China, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, along with the sort of warfare scenes that define epics".[19]

Writing for The Boston Globe, Wesley Morris exuberantly exclaimed that Mongol "actually works as an old-fashioned production - one with breathtaking mohawks, a scary yoking, one daring escape, hottish sex, ice, snow, braying sheep, blood oaths, dehydrating dunes, throat singing, a nighttime urination, kidnapping, charged reunions, and relatively authentic entertainment values."[20]

Film critic Roger Ebert writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, called the film a "visual spectacle, it is all but overwhelming, putting to shame some of the recent historical epics from Hollywood." Summing up, Ebert wrote "The nuances of an ancient and ingeniously developed culture are passed over, and it cannot be denied that Mongol is relentlessly entertaining as an action picture."[21]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times, stated that Mongol was a "big, ponderous epic, its beautifully composed landscape shots punctuated by thundering hooves and bloody, slow-motion battle sequences."[22] Scott approved of how the film encompassed "rich ethnographic detail and enough dramatic intrigue to sustain a viewer's interest through the slower stretches."[22]

Similarly, Joe Morgenstern wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the film consisted of battle scenes which were as "notable for their clarity as their intensity; we can follow the strategies, get a sense of who's losing and who's winning. The physical production is sumptuous." Morgenstern affirmed that Mongol was "an austere epic that turns the stuff of pulp adventure into a persuasive take on ancient history."[23]

Lisa Schwarzbaum writing for Entertainment Weekly lauded the visual qualities of the film, remarking how Mongol "contrasts images of sweeping landscape and propulsive battle with potent scenes of emotional intimacy", while also referring to its "quite grand, quite exotic, David Lean-style epic" resemblance.[24]

The film however, was not without its detractors. Kyle Smith of the New York Post commented that the film combined the "intelligence of an action movie with the excitement of an art-house release" making Mongol "as dry as summer in the Gobi Desert." Smith did compliment director Bodrov on staging a "couple of splattery yet artful battle scenes". But ultimately thought the film "really isn't worth leaving your yurt for."[25]

In another unfavorable opinion, author Tom Hoskyns of The Independent described the film as being "very thin plot-wise." Hoskyns commended the "desolate landscapes and seasonal variations", but he was not excited about the repetitious nature of the story showing the "hero getting repeatedly captured and escaping."[26]

Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out, added to the negative sentiment by saying Mongol was a "Russian-produced dud." He noted that it included "Ridiculous dialogue and Neanderthal motivations" as well as bearing "little relation to the raw, immediate work of his countrymates—like Andrei Tarkovsky, whose epic Andrei Rublev really gives you a sense of the dirt and desperation."[27]

The film was nominated and won several awards in 2007–09. Various critics included the film on their lists of the top 10 best films of 2008. Mike Russell of The Oregonian named it the fifth-best film of 2008,[28] Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer named it the eighth-best film of 2008,[28] and V.A. Musetto of the New York Post also named it the eighth-best film of 2008.[28]