Recommended Viewing: Mongol

Mongol is the story of Genghis Khan's early life. I really enjoyed this movie; it has beautiful scenery, drama, a moving love story and copious amounts of blood & violence.

... Wait, what?

Seriously. I usually hate violence, especially when it's really graphic, but:
(a) this movie could not have been made without some violence, being the story of Genghis Khan,
(b) all the violence is contextual and moves the story forward, and
(c) it makes the quiet moments and the love story all the more poignant.

Plus, the cinematography throughout the whole movie is just beautiful. The sweeping Mongolian landscapes are incredible. They spend a lot of time close in on the actors' faces - not in a horrible Pore-Vision way, just kind of natural & intimate. The acting seemed to me to be very subtle, so I liked the close-ups because I felt I needed it to be able to catch those tiny flickers of emotion.

The really striking part for me was in the battle scenes. They use this particular style of filming where everything is super sharp and defined at every moment, almost like the way they shoot hi-def sports - you can see individual drops of blood spraying out when a guy slices another guy across the chest. The only other movie I can think of that had action filmed like that was Brotherhood of the Wolf, a movie I also enjoyed despite being in a genre I don't usually care for.

I don't know how historically accurate Mongol is. According to my husband (who likes to do more research than I do), very little written history ever survived about this period; there's, like, one written account that was later translated into Chinese and even that is more like a legend than an accurate record. So it's really anyone's guess what Genghis Khan was actually like or what drove him to do whatever he did.

But still an entirely enjoyable film. You may like to watch it with a cushion in front of your eyes if the sight of blood gives you the willies though.