Russian director Sergei Bodrov has made a magnificent epic which evokes some of the greats of the past, including Lawrence of Arabia.
Comment
06/13/08
Mongol (2008)
87
%
Tomatometer
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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.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Jun 19, 2008 Wide
US 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... [More]
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Honglei Sun, Khulan Chuluun, Odnyam Odsuren
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Reviews for Mongol
Top CriticYou might wonder how Bodrov could fail to make every minute of Genghis Khan's extraordinary life near edge-of-the-seat involving, but there are some dull stretches before the pace picks up again.
06/13/08
Top CriticEven the most intense human drama is somehow reduced by the landscape.
06/20/08
Top CriticTemudgin is so single-minded that Asano has trouble suggesting much about his inner life.
06/20/08
Top CriticThe visuals and performances make it worth it, but this is a wilfully oblique bit of warrior hagiography.
06/20/08
Top CriticGenghis Khan's lost decade fuels a handsome fantasy.
07/10/08
Top Critic'Vast landscapes, savage battles, sparring blood brothers and a poignant love story form the essence of Sergei Bodrov's spectacular epic, among whose achievements are its extraordinary sense of place and time.
06/12/08
Top CriticMore 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.
05/26/08
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.
06/06/08
It must have been a pretty weak year for subtitled fare if the Oscar voters sought to praise this inert, inept epic.
07/05/08
A ferocious film, blood-soaked, pausing occasionally for passionate romance and more frequently for torture. As a visual spectacle, it is all but overwhelming, putting to shame some of the recent historical epics from Hollywood.
06/20/08
Top CriticThis revisionist history of the early life of Ghengis Khan leaves one baffled and unconvinced.
06/06/08
For anyone even slightly interested in Mongolian history or in the life of the man who would conquer a fifth of the Earth's landmass, "Mongol" is a movie that demands repeated screenings.
06/02/08
A grandly kitschy rendering of Genghis Khan's early years, the ones revealing how a boy became a ruthless yet humane warrior, devoted family man and all-around good fellow, Mongol might as well be called Braveheart in a Yurt.
06/19/08
Mongol is a big, ponderous epic, its beautifully composed landscape shots punctuated by thundering hooves and bloody, slow-motion battle sequences.
06/05/08
Top CriticJapanese indie idol Asano smolders as maverick Temudgin [Khan].
09/19/07
Top CriticA 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.
06/27/08
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
06/06/08
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.
06/02/08
This would have been one of the greatest all time epics, but there were some major gaps in the story.
10/17/08
Latest News for Mongol
January 08, 2009:
Broadcast Film Critics Name Critics' Choice Winners
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. 
More...
June 05, 2008:
Box Office Guru Preview: Black vs. Sandler in Comedy Showdown
Two big doses of comedy from a pair of Hollywood's funniest men will hit the multiplexes across North America on Friday in a fierce battle for the number one spot. For family... More...
March 30, 2008:
Trailer & Poster review
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