Steppe Warrior
Genghis Khan could be coming soon to a theater near you.
By Tom Birchenough Published: April 1, 2005
In the history of Russian and Soviet film, international co-productions have had a checkered reputation. The few projects to emerge in Soviet days were mostly collaborations with communist-friendly European countries, such as Italy, the partner for Sergei Bondarchuk's 1970 epic "Waterloo." In the post-Soviet era, the most visible such project -- Nikita Mikhalkov's 1999 "The Barber of Siberia," co-produced with France -- proved distinctly underwhelming. Despite its price tag of $45 million, "Barber" earned mediocre reviews and grossed less than $7 million abroad.
Against this backdrop, the latest project from director Sergei Bodrov looks all the more promising. For his next film, Bodrov is looking in another direction: not westward, toward Europe or Hollywood, but eastward, toward Asia. In particular, Mongolia will provide the inspiration and scenery for his newest project. Titled "Mongol," the film is the first part of a projected trilogy about the 13th-century conqueror Genghis Khan. Bodrov plans to start filming "Mongol" this summer, and the movie is slated for release in 2006.
Given the growing success of Asian films on the global market -- especially movies such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero," which combined the genres of the action film and the historical costume drama -- eastward seems like a logical direction. During a recent interview at the offices of Andreyevsky Flag, a Moscow-based production company, Bodrov said that he hoped to duplicate the success of recent films from Hong Kong and China.
"We'll see what happens, but we're hoping for the best," said the 56-year-old filmmaker, who has directed critically acclaimed films such as the 1996 Chechen war drama "The Prisoner of the Mountains" (Kavkazsky Plennik). "It's no coincidence that we invited people into our team who participated in the creation of 'Crouching Tiger' and 'Hero.'"
Specifically, Bodrov meant Hong Kong-based producer Philip Lee, who was behind both films. Lee's involvement in "Mongol" was cemented in February at the Berlin International Film Festival. In addition to Lee, "Mongol" will also be co-produced by Sergei Selyanov -- whose company, CTB, was the most respected independent Russian production outfit of the 1990s -- and Anton Melnikov of Andreyevsky Flag.
Bodrov said that the life of Genghis Khan -- who established the largest land-based empire in world history, stretching from Asia to Europe -- would make an excellent basis for a historical epic.
"I am what you would call a storyteller," Bodrov said. "And in this case we've found an extraordinary story. ... It's a story about love, about Genghis Khan, about a boy who was an orphan and then went on to conquer half the world, more than Alexander and all the other conquerors."
To bring home his point, Bodrov cited a 2003 study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The study showed that about 8 percent of the men living in the regions of the former Mongol empire -- roughly 16 million men in countries from China to Uzbekistan -- shared a genetic marker that pointed to a common ancestor. According to the study's authors, the most likely explanation was that all the men were descended from Genghis Khan, whose sons had scores of wives and numerous children.
Despite the director's enthusiasm, not everybody is happy with the project. Bodrov's screenplay -- coauthored by Arif Aliyev, Bodrov's writing partner for "The Prisoner of the Mountains" -- has sparked controversy in Mongolia. In particular, Mongolians have objected to the script's portrayal of a youthful Genghis being mocked in a Chinese zoo and its assertion that Genghis' son Chagatai had Chinese ancestry. Calling these details inaccurate, a group of Mongolian academics accused the filmmakers of "profaning and humiliating the national pride of the Mongolian people."
Writing in the Mongolian newspaper Ardyn Erkh, a journalist identified as Zh. Indranil concurred with the academics. "If this planned movie comes out on the screens of our movie theaters, tears will appear in the eyes of every Mongol. In the script by Sergei Bodrov and Arif Aliev, there is not a trace of historical accuracy," Indranil wrote.
The fierce reaction in Mongolia took the director by surprise. Bodrov explained that the screenplay's contentious assertions were based on the writings of the Russian historian Lev Gumilyov. (Scholars have questioned the accuracy of Gumilyov's claims.) But according to the director, the controversy had at least one positive effect: It helped introduce him to the psychology of the Mongolian people.
"For us, Genghis Khan lived 800 years ago and he's an extraordinary historical figure," Bodrov said. "For Mongolians, he is a living person -- even today, he's important and critical. They see him as the father of their nation. We don't have a comparable figure in Russia. Here, nobody cares how many children Peter the Great had, and by whom. All this has been forgotten. For them, such matters are still alive and kicking."
Despite the controversy in Genghis Khan's homeland, Bodrov still hopes that the project will involve Mongolia as both a major shooting location and a production partner. He also said that there have been ambivalent reactions in Russia, where, for historical reasons, Genghis Khan is perceived negatively.
"In Russia, some people are already convinced that we've fallen in love with Genghis Khan and his empire," Bodrov joked.
Another hurdle that Bodrov may face is learning a new language. "Mongol" is projected to run predominantly in Mongolian, although it also includes Russian, Cantonese, Kazakh and Tartar. At present, only the film's Mongolian actors know the language, but the rest of its cast will learn Mongolian too, the director said. Bodrov himself has started the process, albeit slowly. "I already know a very important word, the most important word in Mongolian: myakh, which means 'meat,'" he said.
"Mongol" -- which has an impressive budget of between $10 million and $12 million -- is subtitled "Part One" and planned as the first part of a trilogy. The first film will follow Genghis through his early years, while the second will show the period of his conquests and the trilogy will close with a film about his old age. The amount of financing for the second and third films will depend on the success of the first, Bodrov said.
An international cast is being assembled for "Mongol." The Asian-American actor Channing Tatum ("Coach Carter") will star in "Part One" as the young Genghis, while Tadanobu Asano ("Zatoichi") will play his brother.
But while the film's cast and many of its technical aspects, including stunts and action sequences, will be drawn from Asia, some important technical roles will be filled from Europe. On the visual front, the production designer will be Wolf Kroeger, known for the Stalingrad epic "Enemy at the Gates," and a past collaborator with Bodrov. Meanwhile, the costume designer will be Emi Wada, who won an Oscar for his work on Akira Kurosawa's "Ran." Also, Rogier Stoffers -- who worked on the Dutch film "Character," which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of 1997 -- has been booked as the cinematographer.
It's a mix that is characteristic of Bodrov, whose career has spanned the continents. After working at Kazakh Film Studios in the 1980s, he became one of the few Russian directors to work in Hollywood. Recently, however, he has become more visible back home, completing "Bear's Kiss" in 2002 and returning to Kazakhstan for last year's "Schizo" (Shiza), which he co-wrote and co-produced. Sadly, one reason for his greater visibility in Russia was the tragic death of his son, Sergei Bodrov Jr., who perished in an avalanche in 2002 while directing a film in the Karmadon Gorge in North Ossetia.
Bodrov said that he postponed a Hollywood project -- "The Call of the Wild," based on the story by Jack London -- to work on "Mongol."
"I put off that project because it was more interesting for me to work in Mongolia. I do what's more interesting for me," Bodrov said.
The director was philosophical about working with Hollywood -- and with good reason. His 1999 film for Columbia Pictures, "Running Free," offers a case in point. Variety ended up describing the film as "a profoundly disappointing attempt to reinvigorate the animal movie genre with the classic ingredients of physical poetry and mythical storytelling." Bodrov has spoken at length about how his original approach to a movie about horses was ruined by the narrow-minded results of a U.S. test screening. After the screening, studio executives insisted that the horses should have a voice-over narration, something that critics later identified as the weakest part of the final film.
Bodrov is optimistic about the Russian film industry. He cited last year's "Night Watch" (Nochnoi Dozor) as something of a watershed, expressing high hopes for the emerging crop of young Russian directors. But whether they will move on to Hollywood -- which appears likely in the case of Timur Bekmambetov, the director of "Night Watch" -- is another matter.
"It depends on the directors themselves, on whether they have the ambition or not," Bodrov said. "For me, it was like participating in an athletic competition. If you can work in Hollywood, you can work anywhere, because Hollywood is a very rigorous school that gives you a strong introduction to this profession."
For now, however, Bodrov has turned down Tinseltown to work on "Mongol." Of course, only time will tell whether shooting a film in the Mongolian steppe, based on a somewhat loaded historical subject, will prove to be the right decision. But the prospect of Bodrov tackling the story of Genghis Khan should be -- at the very least -- intriguing.
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/01/101.html
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