(no subject)

[camwyn]

So I saw "Mongol", the first of a planned trilogy of movies about the life of Temujin (aka Genghis Khan) last night. I am impressed; the movie was gorgeous, the story was interesting (if a little weirdly distributed in places), and I found myself wanting to visit Mongolia afterwards. I admit, however, that one particular aspect of Temujin's behavior was, for me, colored by modern knowledge of the man. Namely, on at least two occasions Temujin's wife Bortei gets stolen or otherwise hauled off by other men and produces a child thereby. Temujin declares the resultant kids to be his own without batting an eyelash. In the movie this was presented as fairly significant because of his passion for Bortei, but all I could think was "Of course he's acknowledging the kids as his. He can afford it! He's GENGHIS BLOODY KHAN! His Y chromosome's scattered across HALF OF BLOODY ASIA! What are two kids compared to being Pimp Daddy Khan to tens of millions across the largest continent in the world?" And then I had to smack myself, because he wasn't the great Khan yet at that point in the story...

Oh, and there was one particular battle where he seized and fortified a mountain pass and held it an ungodly length of time against a vastly numerically superior force. Largely by not leaping over the fortifications to fight in front of them. After watching that I had the sudden urge to sit the man down with a copy of 300 and watch to see when he started shouting out what the movie!Spartans were doing wrong. Starting with the naked ("Your people have armor! WEAR IT!") and going from there.

Comments

[jezrana.livejournal.com]

The thing in that movie that gave me the most trouble was when the guy who killed Temujin's father then repeatedly captured and enslaved Temujin, but failed to kill him. REPEATEDLY. That's no way to deal with the son of someone you killed even when he ISN'T going to grow up to be Genghis Khan.

...And then I had to remind myself that a) no one knew he was going to grow up to be Genghis Khan and that b) as residents of 13th-century Mongolia, no one in this movie could have been expected to read the evil overlord list (http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html).

[camwyn]

If nothing else, the second or third time Temujin ran off, he should've at least sprung for a regular program of beatings. That might've at least slowed Temujin down (although it would give him more motivation for revenge).

[the_croupier]

I haven't seen that (yet), but have you seen Musa the Warrior? It's also terrific, and probably a good match for Mongol.

Which now I really need to rent asap.

[camwyn]

Haven't seen that, no. Is it about Mansa Musa, or is it Asian?

[the_croupier]

Nope, it's a Korean film, and at $60 million it had one of the biggest budgets Korea had fronted to that point. Here's the premise:

"In 1375, China was in a state of chaos because of fighting between the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. The Korea Dynasty, one of Korea's ancient kingdoms, sent a delegation of many diplomats, soldiers and a silent slave as envoys to make peace with the new Chinese Ming government. However, this delegation was accused of spying and exiled to a remote desert. On the way, they were attacked by Yuan troops who killed all the Ming soldiers, leaving only Korea warriors."

This being an Asian historical war story, it's not going to spoil you at all if I say, "This isn't going to end well." But it also ends *awesomely*, as the warriors come upon an abandoned fortress by the sea and make their tough-as-nails, last stand there. It's a great movie.

[camwyn]

Oooh. *trots over to Netflix to put it on the queue*