Review: Mongol
Subtitled “The Rise to Power of Genghis Khan”, it’s a personal and long dragged out journey full of pain and misery for just one character. Showing the younger years of mr. Khan, with a running time of 2 hours, is a long happening. Mostly the hardships are shown, over and over again. While he voice-overs his own journey, it doesn’t provide any character depth, because all dialogue lack any emotion, reasoning or motivation. Some things are even shown the be mythical (or maybe just illusions of the mind), adding to the confusion of what this movie is trying to tell us.
Luckily, there are some big battle scenes, but as an Oscar nominee (2007 – Foreign film category), I don’t see how it got this nomination.
Except for rooting for the underdog part, there’s no real emotional resonance, and the story is a bit barren, like a desert lacking green plants.7-.