I stumbled upon it today on Netflix while eating lunch. I watched it for about a half-hour, but found it to be a waste of time and quit after 30 minutes. It's evident that there's some great acting and direction at work in this production, but it totally failed in the storytelling department. I think it's a good thing for the screenwriters to be from the "show", not "tell" school of film making, but more exposition would have helped. It seemed like Game of Thrones without enough back story. Maybe something got lost in translation since it is dubbed.
I found the depiction of the Mongols to be totally misleading. As a history buff, I understand that the Mongols ruled the largest and most diverse empire in the history of the world for more than 200 years. However, I don't think that feat was done by what this film depicts as the most boorishly brutal group of "hillbilly" Mongols this side of Urals. It's as though the director had studied some isolated tribes in Mongolia and grafted his impressions onto his depiction of the Mongol ruling class. For all their ruthlessness, the Mongols of the Golden Horde were more worldly and diplomatic than the bunch depicted in this film. Some historians consider the Mongol Empire the first multinational corporation. If the movie Mongols had ruled Russia, I doubt that they would have been able to hold onto power for a decade instead of a few centuries. If the Russians had allowed themselves to be conquered by this sorry group, it does n't really make the Russians look too good either.
