But I think not everyone does know all the history re Genghis Khan. I certainly don’t. Why was it a battle to unite Mongolia? How did the battle come to happen? How did Genghis amass the men — and not just “slaughter for me and I’ll only keep 10% of the take” but just the actual amassing of these guys, you know?

It wasn’t complete, there was no transition, there was too little linear thought for a movie that’s clearly intending on moving in a linear fashion.

I liked it, but I’m more disappointed than I am satisfied, and I dislike feeling that way. So…

Yeah, there wasn’t enough about him as a leader on an interpersonal level. No one gets to such a position without being able to rally people and motivate them, and nothing was shown as to why or how people would feel inspired by Temudjin. It was really frustrating.

The obvious parallel is Braveheart. There, you knew why men were willing to die for him, but you don’t get that sense with Mongol. Sigh.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

It’s not the greatest film every made but photographically it is a beautiful piece of cinema. I do think that there has been an over abundance of films with long battle scenes over the past few years and it was nice that this film didn’t put too much emphasis on the battles.

I do think the film could have made more emphasis on why after fighting against Temudjin men would join up with him. It was touched but only barely. This I feel was more important to his rise in power than how the early battles were won. I do think if there was a film made of his latter life the battles outwith Mongolia, ie in China and elsewhere, then the battle scenes would have been of more prominence.

Wait for the DVD. It’s the battle scenes they kept cutting away from inexplicably. Like, WHAT? It’d be like Braveheart showing you half of every battle, then cutting completely away for no reason at all. Hello, pacing, anyone? Anyone? No? Resolution? No?

Or maybe that’s the Russian way. No resolution for you!

(Directed by a Russian, crewed by probably half Russkies too.)

Mongol: We came, we saw, we were glad it was free.

However… I really want to see it on DVD, because I bet the other hour of needed movie will be there.

Every time things started to get going, it would suddenly cut away from the action to some slow, stilted scene, and it’d voiceover/subtitle into a new era, and, finally, when this happened at the big battle scene, I just sputtered aloud in the theatre, “What?” and GB snickered.

But, seriously, the bones to this movie are fantastic, but it’s like it’s made as a 3-hour epic for Asia but got gutted into a 2-hour movie for North America. There are some seriously big gaps. It doesn’t work.

It’s not like it’s innovative editing and I’m missing something in translation, no, they’ve just completely removed, it seems, entire scenes of the movie. Like it goes from an exiled Temujin (Genghis’ real name, spelled about 12 ways, but all sounding like Temujin) praying to suddenly him being the leader of this massive army and it’s about to fight to unify all of Mongolia and, you’re like, “But how the fuck did we get HERE? What about the 2 years of army-building before this?”

Like I said to Gayboy, “Well, I’m glad I saw it, but I’m thrilled I didn’t pay”–

And that SUCKS because this is a Lord-of-the-Rings kinda thing where they apparently shot the trilogy over the course of a year, back to back. I want to love this movie, and if I ever see a director’s cut that makes it all make sense, then I’ll be thrilled.

But I can’t in good conscience recommend anyone see it, because they fucked the editing up far too much for it to make sense. Sigh. Bah! Stupid editors!

Less wolf, editor, more battle! Fuckin’ people.