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 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 CriticTemudgin is so single-minded that Asano has trouble suggesting much about his inner life.
06/20/08
Top CriticEven the most intense human drama is somehow reduced by the landscape.
06/20/08
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 CriticVisually stunning, historically interesting, and very entertaining.
10/08/08
Hell has no wrath like a Khan scorned.
07/09/08
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.
06/19/08
... Bodrov's engaging vision of Genghis Khan in several moments almost feels like the silent movie epics by the Russian cinematic pioneer Sergei Eisenstein.
07/10/08
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.
06/20/08
The movie would be an unbearably grueling endurance test for the audience and the hero were it not for the arid beauty of the Great Steppe and the sweep of the battles, rendered with splatters of gore that lend a Jackson Pollock-like excitement to [it].
06/20/08
Mongol is a little slow at times, but you do a get a good history lesson while you get to see blood spraying and bodies flying all over the place.
06/19/08
Bodrov and Arif Aliyev wrote the film, which was one of this year's foreign-language Oscar nominees, and their account is framed as a drama of inflamed loins and intense loyalty.
06/20/08
This revisionist history of the early life of Ghengis Khan leaves one baffled and unconvinced.
06/06/08
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.
06/05/08
A beautiful and ambitious film flawed by its dogged determination to cast Genghis Khan in a new light, the best that can be hoped is that Mongol provides a stage for better things in the forthcoming films.
06/06/08
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 CriticA 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
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. 
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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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