An everyday person knows the same basic facts about Genghis Khan. I myself knew nothing more. He was a fearsome leader of the Mongols who united the nomadic tribes and created the foundation for an empire which, after his death, became the largest in history. In its formation over 40 million people were massacred, but the Mongol Empire stretched from China to Eastern Europe. One of the most fearsome and ruthless leaders of all time conquered the known world.
This stunning film from Kazakhstan does not show this portion of his life. As the title suggests, it is a movie about his ascent to power and presents a detailed, if still highly enigmatic, portrait of the early years of the man who surely has one of the most interesting lives ever recorded. It follows the boy, age 9, until he conquers all other khans on the steppes of Mongolia to become the supreme leader in an attempt to bring law and reason to tribes whose morals and honor have died.
Born to a khan himself as Temujin, the leader in waiting looses his father to an assassin and is chained into slavery. As a child his formative years were marked by a series of events that instilled a sense of composure and vengeance in him that would continue throughout his life. Temujin's child self is played by Odnyam Odsuren with the clear, calm, fixed eyes of a boy beyond his years. Temujin knew his destiny and providence led him to his ultimate prize.
As a man he struggled to form bands of men around him and suffered another stint as a slave. The life of the Mongol is violent and wild with people living in constant fear of rape, abduction, theft and murder. Temujin survived as all others did, through trust in the friends he made. The beautiful woman he married, Borte (Khulan Chuluun), remained faithfully by his side and his childhood friend Jamukha (Honglei Sun) helped him until it was no longer possible.
The epic tale of this man, acted flawlessly by Tadanobu Asano, is structured around the love story between him and Borte. The upheavals in his life brought him to far off places full of danger and blood, but it was their love that always brought him home, and on several encounters saved his life.
This film requires a certain suspension of disbelief. The historical records surrounding Genghis Khan, especially in his early life, are certainly full of gaps. Our viewing of Temujin seems to be structured largely around mysticism and folklore, a persona larger than the man is built in a local attempt to explain the wondrous might of one individual. Many of his escapes go unseen and unexplained leaving us to wonder how, and we are presented with only the slightest explanation. Throughout the movie it is argued that his rise to glory was the work of the god Tengri, who brought storms and winds when he was displeased, but always sought to make Temujin the greatest of the khans.
This great god, we are asked to believe, freed him from shackles, brought him to those he needed, and gifted him with victory in great battles. Indeed, his strength seemed superhuman and occurrences seemed more than happenstance. But I suppose many leaders--Hitler, for example--used religion to support their rule--divine right. At first, untold explanations for things like a 9 year old boy escaping from beneath and ice-covered pond were frustrating, but by the end it must be accepted that this is a biography mixed with legend. Or perhaps it is legend mixed with truths.
As a film this puts many, bigger Hollywood epics to shame. The fight scenes are rousing and deliciously gruesome. The romance and the conquest is poetically handled and has risen above a simple story of a great man to become art. Each scene was shot to look like some early 20th century American painting or the cover of a National Geographic issue. The colors were saturated but crisp, painting beauty around someone we ignorantly brand as brutal.
That does beg the question as to why he portrayed in such a positive way. He did bring stability, religious tolerance and education to the country, but at such a high body count does he deserve to be considered the founding father of Mongolia? But that's largely irrelevant. He is a wolf and the thunder that all Mongols fear, and with an image larger than himself he deserved a film larger than his story.
3.5/4
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