you can give my place to someone else, i have no further interest in the club.

My acquisition of Mongol has slowed somewhat in the last week, but is now past the 98% mark. So it shall be complete tonight, and I will commence watching this epic.

I did enjoy Mongol but found it very violent. The torture scenes were quite disturbing.
Seemingly single minded in it's concept.
I will give it 3 stars mainly for cinematography.

I have now watched Mongol, in the nick of time perhaps, nonetheless here I am with my review.

Firstly I know very little about Genghis Khan, and the one opportunity I had, when a Folio edition of The Secret History of the Mongols became available to me, I let it slip through my fingers. My other brief exposure to Mongolian history was as a kid I enjoyed looking at historical maps of empires of the past, and the late Middle Ages featured much of Asia being covered by an empire with the intriguing name "Khanate of the Golden Horde". So not being in a position to judge the film's historicity I can this time allow myself to settle down and enjoy it without regard for the myriad details that might otherwise infuriate me, such as the unwarrantably vicious characterisation of Emperor Commodus in 'Gladiator'.

Being the first part of a trilogy, the film concentrates on speculations concerning his boyhood, family life, and initial struggles to gain a foothold in the world of Mongolian clan politics. This is all quite comfortably predictable and carries the film along smoothly, if not at the perceptive level of classic epics like 'Patton' or 'Lawrence of Arabia'. The main surprise in the script, in contrarian fashion to the old chestnut that half the world can claim Genghis Khan as their direct ancestor, Temüjin is happy to allow his wife to have many children to whichever man happens to have kidnapped her lately, and then cheerfully accepts them as his own. Now I have absolutely no idea what the basis of this claim is, but whatever the case it would be ironic if one of the greatest alpha-males in history proves to be a meek cuckold, much in the way that modern beta-males are happy to foot the bill raising children sired by Jamal and Leeroy now that they have abandoned the mother like a hand-me-down.

The real strength of the film is in the cinematography, where we are treated to solid, old-school stunning images of the Steppes, with no obvious CGI backdrops, or overly processed images as Janusz Kaminsky and his ilk insist upon foisting on audiences these days. Or whatever they thought they were doing in 'The 300'. So for this alone the film is well worth seeing, in HD especially. It's gratifying that Russian filmmakers are delivering the sort of epic spectacle that Hollywood steadfastly refuses to deliver these days.

I give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

PS. LamontCranston claimed to have seen Mongol, comparing its aesthetics to 'The 300', but this would appear to be a lie:

[19:24] <+LamontCranston> Tigger you will when the heavy metal sound track kicks in during the cavalry charges

I can confirm there is no heavy metal music in the soundtrack during any scene, rather it is a traditional orchestral score throughout. I have also acquired the soundtrack album. LamontCranston has not seen 'Mongol' at all. I can only speculate that he may have seen a trailer that used music that wasn't in the film, a common practice these days, much like the trailers for the Lord of the Rings films actually use the soundtrack to 'Requiem For A Dream'.

I will confirm that I witnessed no heavy metal music during any scene in the main feature.
<+LamontCranston> maybe it was during the credits :(
Interesting to see someone backtracking.