Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Interesteg What makes it different from others?

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

tamayo-24294 This is probably one of my favorite foreign films. Anything that can get relatively close to American film, I all for. I'm trying to get out there more, and get more knowledge from foreign films, but sometimes it's nice to see a film you may be used to. But that's besides the point. The film shows the "good" side of the famous Mongolian emperor, Genghis Khan. The film shows him growing up, and the struggles he went through to get to where he was. I do think that the film ended at a weird part though. It ended after the battle when Genghis Kahn faces and defeats his brother. There about 10 minutes afterwards of him living his life more or less, but I do think it would have cool to end it after he defeats the emperor who built the Great Wall. That's really my only gripe about the film.

redrobin62-321-207311 These days, it's hard to find the time to sit down and engross myself in historical canon that I'd like to. If I was given the time, I'd immerse myself in the (hopefully) accurate biographies of Da Vinci, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahavira, the Renaissance and Edo periods, Korean and African histories, and really, anything entertaining, in depth and accurate. Sadly, all I can do is rely on movies to educate me. Really, I should know better, given the need for studios to get their investments back, and then some, by wedging love stories into epics to get the female dollars in the theatres. Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan, unfortunately, fell headlong into that commercial trap. Really, the movie was actually a love story with the backdrop which was the Temujin's rise to power. As such, the filmmaker took an extreme amount of liberty and explained very little, history-wise.Seriously - armies of men sacrificed their lives for one woman? These rough-hewn Mongols are scared to death of a little thunderstorm? Temujin gained men to his fold because he was just so likable? A little coercive force had nothing to do with that? Maybe a little bribe here, a little touch of corruption there? No? This Temujin sure was a forgiving fellow. Hard to believe considering his immense rise to power. One couldn't possibly consolidate that much power, and inspire that much fear, by being forgiving to his enemies, can they? Wouldn't he be perceived as being weak? There are other questionable elements in the film which, in all honesty, degrades its intensity. The Russians despised Genghis Khan because he was seen as ruthless and blood-thirsty. I believe it. I mean, in the end, the guy did kill about 250 million people. That's a lot of bodies for a forgiving guy, no?

chaos-rampant I like the story about the renowned Taoist master who was summoned by Genghis Khan in Beijing; missing him there, he had to travel for three years, crossing half of Asia to find him in his camp in Afghanistan, and can you imagine the arduous trek to meet a fearsome man capable of who knows what if displeased. Nothing fruitful came from the encounter eventually, the warlord wanted to know about a secret recipe for immortality, the sage had only Taoism to give. They went their own ways after, one to raid India, the other walked back home. But something did happen. The long journey was chronicled by a companion, giving us a rare glimpse of life from the Great Wall to the Hindu Kush, only possible because an old man set out to go.Journeys can be about who's waiting on the other end or not; but they're always about life glimpsed in the process, ways of traveling. Films too of course.The destination here is a portrait of Genghis, his rise from nothing in the steppe to unify the tribes. It leaves off as he's about to embark on epoch-making history so we don't get the sweeping conquest and atrocity, we get a national hero molded to necessity by a ruthless world. A second film was in the works apparently but scrapped.No matter. It's the lack of real journey that I miss. Oh we do get some glimpse of Mongolian rite and custom along the way, the savagery of life, it was filmed near where events must have taken place, and the faces and dresses on actors look "real" enough, even though the lead is Japanese. But it's always all part of obviously plotted theatrics. The whole shorthand used to jot down this chronicle, the breath that animates it, the eye that looks, none of it feels like it draws soul from another time and corner of the world, none of it jolts from the commonness of "historic epic".I end up with a handful of movie scenes scattered about the steppe, borrowed gestures, poses and silences of somnolence, movie battles, and I'm just not satisfied with airbrushed convention and generic TV- level imagination as ground to walk on. It takes me nowhere.Fun thing to note. This is about a victor who managed to concentrate all this power and then just spilled it over half the known world, leveling and scattering instead of building. The neighboring Chinese were as genocidal as he was (more in fact), but had been cultivating for centuries a narrative of cohesion that creates culture that endures to create abstraction. When they celebrate their treacherous past, it might be Hero that we get.

grantss Disappointing.I love biopics, so was very keen to see this, especially as I don't know much about the life of Genghis Khan. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed. A lot of the bigger picture detail is left out. The script leaves huge gaps in the history, gaps which which would have been more interesting that the detail that was provided. Because of these gaps you don't get a feel for how Genghis Khan achieved his power, and the whole thing becomes disjointed and confusing.Acting felt very wooden, too.A movie that leaves you with more questions than answers.