Mongol: The early days of Genghis Khan...

went to see "Mongol" today at the SFIFF, couldn't believe that a 2pm screening on weekday was a a full house, guess the oscar nomination definitely helped a bit..

the film is fine, but not as good as i expected. cinematography is superb (beautiful landscapes) and asano tadanobu gives brilliant performance as temudjin (aka genghis khan), while sun hong lei is also interesting (as jamukha)

narrative structure is quite conventional, and it is like a biorgraphy of temudjin's early life, the focus of the film is the struggles of the character and how these struggles form his personality, which is quite different from what the promotion wants you to believe (the trailer gives ppl feeling that it is a war epic with tons of exciting actions and killings) ...

in the film, temudjin is quite a romantic guy too... "when i first saw her, i already know she'd be my wife".. that is what he said about his wife, and also the kind of temudjin you'd expect from this film..

好一句"when i first saw her, i already know she'd be my wife"﹐令人感慨。