Mongol

This weekend we went to go see “Mongol,” a movie about the early years of Genghis Khan, starring Asano Tadanobu, one of Japan’s leading film actors. It was one of the best movies I’ve seen in quite a while.

WHEN A FILM called “Mongol” takes as its story the formative years of Genghis Khan, a conqueror who eventually controlled a fifth of the Earth, you know what you’ll be getting. But with this film you’ll be getting that and more.

…it wasn’t the carnage that earned this project, made with the stately unhurried pace of old Hollywood, one of the five foreign-language Oscar nominations earlier this year. It was its epic imagery and the unexpectedly humanistic attitudes, at least as far as this film is concerned, of its protagonist.

As shot by Sergey Trofimov, “Mongol” has a feeling for stunning vistas and wide-screen composition that is really something to see. Photographing in remote and scenic corners of China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, the cinematographers offer gorgeous views of inhospitable deserts, grassy meadows and snowy steppes. Having hoards of determined horsemen cross and recross these expanses doesn’t hurt one bit.

From The Los Angeles Times.