DVD Review - Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea
Rating: 
Some time ago, Douglas Adams wrote a short story entitled ‘The Private Life of Genghis Khan ‘ which lifted the curtain on the legendary conquerer’s civilian existence to humorous effect. The Great Khan breaks into a woman’s yurt, forcing her to treat him with all the banality of a middle-manager arriving home after a long day at the office. Later in the story, the Khan is pestered by his son to commence World Domination who in turn is treated to an endless litany of prior engagements that dissapointingly have nothing to do with conquering the known world. In the end (and I hope I’m not spoiling anything - skip ahead if you’ve not read it) it is only after being insulted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged that Genghis Khan is motivated enough to storm his way to Europe.
While Adams’ story is, on the face of it, preposterous it does raise an interesting question - what exactly did Genghis Khan do with his free time?
No fewer that two separate films in the last year attempted to answer that question - Mongol, by Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov, and Gehghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea, by Japanese director Shinichirô Sawai. While I haven’t seen the former, I recently viewed the latter on DVD courtesy of FUNimation and was fairly impressed.
Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea (hereafter referred to as GK:TTEOTEAS - actually, scratch that…I’ll just call it ‘Genghis Khan‘) turns out to be an entertaining, and even moderately accurate portrayal of the Khan’s early life leading up to his confrontation with the Chinese in the early 13th century.
I say ‘moderately accurate’, because even a non-scholar like myself can deduce that the kinder, gentler Genghis Khan on display here is a fabrication. That said, the film does get all the basic facts correct, and in the end I felt I had at least a basic understanding of who the real Genghis Khan was.
Like the much-reviled Vlad Tepes (the real-life inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula) Genghis Khan was a rough character, forged by rough circumstances. Mongolia in the 13th century was not a pleasant place to be, with constant tribal warfare a fact of daily life. Women were treated as spoils of war to be raped and abused at whim. This was the lot of Ho’elun, the woman who would bear a child named Temujin - the future Genghis Khan. Raised as the bastard offspring of two tribes, Temujin had a pretty rough row to hoe, so to speak. His rise from such meager beginnings to become one of the world’s great conquerers is the meat of Ghenghis Khan.
Most of the film concerns itself with inter-tribal politics, as the young Temujin struggles to keep his own tribe together against relentless attacks from rival tribes. Whatever else one may think of Genghis Khan (and I’m pretty sure that anyone who had a grudge against him or his people is long gone), it’s apparent that he was a man of his times - who could blame his vicious behaviour in an age when weakness was practically an invitation to genocide? Temujin’s singlemindedness is brought to the fore early in the film, when he expediently slays one of his own siblings in order to maintain order within his tribe. Whether he had it coming or not is almost besides the point.
I was almost disappointed when the film diverts into numerous squabbles which call his murderousness into question, delivering a softened Khan who at one point declares that his men will no longer abuse women (I wonder how long that edict lasted). Indeed, whenever history and drama collide, it’s clear that drama is given the upper hand. Empress Kulan, in reality a gift to Temujin of the subjugated Merkit tribe, appears here as a sexy, lethal she-warrior encountered after a battle.
These are minor matters, however, and don’t detract from enjoyment of the film - but as with all big-screen history, it’s to be taken with a grain of salt.
I had some reservations about the all-Japanese cast, however. I’m not a huge stickler for accuracy, but I thought it would be wierd to hear Japanese dialogue coming from Mongolian characters, but unless one is really prone to anal-retentiveness it soon becomes a non-issue…particularly in light of the performances.
Takashi Sorimachi is terrific as the proto-Genghis Khan, and in some ways echoes the great actor Toshiro Mifune. I don’t use that comparison lightly - Sorimachi’s capacity for introspection balanced with the ability to bring on emotional thunder is eerily reminiscent of the late Mifune. Rei Kikukawa and Mayumi Wakamura as Temujin’s mother and wife, respectively, are also standouts. One woudn’t expect a lot of strong female characters in a film so dominated by male personalities, but it’s clear that an effort was made to show the role that women played in Temujin’s life. In that vein, I also quite enjoyed South Korean actress and model Go Ara as the aforementioned Empress Kulan. Hot and badass are a good combination.
I would be seriously remiss in not mentioning the cinematography, as well. Yonezo Maeda perfectly captures Mongolia’s wide, open countryside - I was constantly in awe of the scope and breadth of the scenery. The battle scenes are remarkable insofar as most of them seem to use very little CGI. Sawai reportedly enlisted upwards of 30,000 extras, so I presume that aside from a few shots at the end, most of them are comprised of actors on horses.
If I have any serious complaints about FUNimation’s DVD release of Genghis Khan, it’s that there are zero extras. Nada. Not even a trailer. I’d love to have seen some behind-the-scenes material, such as how the battle scenes were filmed and whatnot. There are some preview trailers for other FUNimation releases, but nothing related to Genghis Khan.
Picture and sound are good, and even the English dub is decent - though I still wouldn’t recommend it over the Japanese audio track.
I enjoyed this film a lot more than I expected. It’s heart lies a little more in telling a good story than historical accuracy - the filmmakers seem intent in making you like Genghis Khan as much as they want you to understand him, which undermines some of the film’s educational value.
As long as you don’t go into it as a scholar of Mongolian history, there is a lot to like about Genghis Khan.
Details
Publisher: FUNimation
Director: Shinichirô Sawai
Stars: Takashi Sorimachi, Rei Kikukawa, Mayumi Wakamura
Running Time: 136 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
MSRP: $24.98
Release Date: 09/02/2008
Buy: Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea
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