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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.

Australian Rating: TBC

Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins

Genre: Dramas

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... 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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Reviews for Mongol

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61 - 80 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

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

The founder of history's greatest contiguous empire gets an appropriately bravehearted movie, an exciting actioner from Russian director Sergei Bodrov.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
06/06/08
Joe Neumaier
Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News

Having Bodrov, who directed the excellent The Prisoner of the Mountains, in charge here is an advantage. Though there is only so much any director can do with characters who are next door to mythic, Bodrov can do more than most, and it helps.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
06/06/08
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

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

Mongol, for all the intense action and warfare, is also a character study of a great leader and strategist.

Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | comment Comment
06/06/08
Liz Braun
Liz Braun
Jam! Movies

As an epic action movie, Mongol is satisfying enough. Think Braveheart. Think 300. Just don't think too much.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
06/06/08
Jason McBride
Jason McBride
Globe and Mail

Mongol is a throwback to a more respectable tradition. The largeness of its scope arises naturally from the material, not the budget. The movie earns its stature.

Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | comment Comment
06/06/08
Peter Rainer
Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor

Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov contrasts images of sweeping landscape and propulsive battle with potent scenes of emotional intimacy in Mongol, his quite grand, quite exotic, David Lean-style epic.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
06/06/08
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly

If you like your epics sweeping and bloody and real, Mongol may be the best you get for a long while.

Full Review Source: CinemaBlend.com | comment Comment
06/06/08
Katey Rich
Katey Rich
CinemaBlend.com

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

[It's] as good as most of this year's American would-be blockbusters, but it might've been far more interesting if the filmmakers had either left the Hollywood mold or embraced it with reckless abandon.

Full Review Source: Paste Magazine | comment Comment
06/06/08
Robert Davis
Robert Davis
Paste Magazine

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

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

Surrender to its exotic oddity and guttural throat-singing and you’ll be entertained by a sweeping saga that’s like a Mongolian Braveheart.

Full Review Source: Total Film | comment Comment
06/06/08
Neil Smith
Neil Smith
Total Film

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.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
06/06/08
Steve Watson
Steve Watson
Channel 4 Film

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

Sergei Bodrov brings back the cinematic epic of old with his revisionist view of Genghis Khan...There is no John Wayne or CGI to be seen in this Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee.

Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | comment Comment
06/05/08
Laura Clifford
Laura Clifford
Reeling Reviews

Mongol presents a Khan with a spring in his step and love in his heart. And, OK, some wrath.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
06/05/08
Paul Brenner
Paul Brenner
Filmcritic.com

Transports us to the faraway past and an exotic place where a legendary warrior is forged into a fierce leader through suffering and hardship.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
06/05/08
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

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
 
 
61 - 80 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 >> >|
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Latest News for Mongol

January 08, 2009: Broadcast Film Critics Name Critics' Choice Winners
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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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