The movie traces the early and tumultuous years of legendary warrior Genghis Khan, then known as Temudgin, who was a slave before going on to conquer half the world including Russia in 1206.
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.
A movie in which acting still prevails is Mongol. People often say, 'They don't make movies like they used to.' Maybe the Russians make movies like Hollywood used to. Mongol, photographed beautifully in Kazakhstan and the Chinese province of
The battle sequences are tremendous, and the performances are captivating, making for the sort of rousing, giant-scale entertainment that a figure as towering as Genghis Khan deserves.
Mongol, from its thrilling battles to its intimate romance, has the look, scale, story and feel of an old-fashioned epic in the best and biggest sense of the word.
Atlantic City Weekly
July 10, 2008
... Bodrov's engaging vision of Genghis Khan in several moments almost feels like the silent movie epics by the Russian cinematic pioneer Sergei Eisenstein.
When we think of the fearsome Genghis Khan, we don't picture him as ever having been a little boy. But he must have been, and that is where this grand throwback to the sweeping historical epics of yesteryear takes up the Great Khan's story.
