User reviews

I haven't seen this in years, but I remember it has some exciting battles, some good acting by Omar Sharif, Michael Hordern and Stephen Boyd, some great acting by James Mason and Robert Morley. I guessing that none of the actors were Mongolian or Chinese. Historically inaccurate, but kind of fun, sort of like some of Erroll Flynn's movies, like "The Charge of the Light Brigade". In recorded history, Genghis Khan was a murderous, merciless tyrant, not the idealist he's seen as in this picture, just wanting to unite all the tribes and live their lives out riding around on their horses not being bothered by the meddling Chinese. Even with all that said, it has some spectacular action and some interesting scenes that do have some historical veracity.

Irving Allen went all the way to Yugoslavia to make this foolish attempt in Technicolor and Panavision to capitalise on Omar Sharif's new-found celebrity which actually carried a disclaimer from Talking Pictures for the myriad racial caricatures on display.

The international cast represents every conceivable ethnicity except for a bona fide Mongolian. Familiar Asian types include Stephen Boyd, James Mason, Robert Morley, Michael Hordern, Telly Savalas, Eli Wallach, Woody Strode, Yvonne Mitchell, Kenneth Cope and Jacqueline Pearce (the latter pair playing Francois Dorleac's brother and Wallach's daughter; the craziest line being Miss Dorleac's description of herself as "ugly-looking").

I have to admit I didn't think this film was half as bad as I have been led to believe through negative reviews here on IMdB and elsewhere. So, if it isn't all bad ... I agree it isn't historically accurate but neither was Elizabeth and 100s of other 'historical' films. It is a bit leaden in places, true. Francoise Dorleac gets a bit tiresome although even she has her moments. The script may be a bit dodgy in places but looking at what we get in recent years ... I don't have a problem with Sharif in the title role at all - I thought he was fine. The 'Chinese' being Mason and Morley was distracting but even at their worst these two were always entertaining. Eli Wallach and Michael Hordern make interesting appearances. Even done on the cheap the film doesn't look bad and I enjoyed it better than, say, Demetrius and the Gladiators. And then there was cute Stephen Boyd if all else failed, always a pleasure to watch. Genghis Khan a turkey? Let's just say 'I've seen worse'.

This is a biopic of Temujin (Carlo Cura/Omar Sharif). This starts with the massacre of his tribe and being taken captive. He would escape and slowly rebuild his tribe. His shaman explains that there are three circles. Their middle circle is full of poor fighting tribes while the Chinese and the white Westerners are rich in the two outer circles. He would conquer the whole Mongolian steppe and meet the Chinese emperor.

This is an old Hollywood epic. It follows the tradition of western actors playing Asian characters. I don't expect any better but it is still very old fashion and dated. The story is fictional, but to be fair, the actual history is mostly written legends and oral traditions. The story does lose steam over time. There is no criticizing the caliber of the cast despite their incorrect race. It's all very grand and very old.

I remembered enjoying this film when I saw it as a pre-teen on television in the '60's. I have remained an avid fan of adventure films and epics. So, when it was aired yesterday on TCM, I tuned in with anticipation. It had not aged well. Perhaps all of the anomalies are more difficult for a mature movie fan to accept.

The best parts of this film are the locations, the sets, the costumes and the props. Even so, the sets are never quite convincingly grand enough. They retain the flavor of sets. The photography never captures the locations in a way that conveys the vastness of Central Asia. And the impact of the costumes and props is diminished by the fact that they are at the service of a predominantly Caucasian cast attempting to portray the tribes of Mongolia.

Blonde Francoise Dorleac, who portrays Genghis Khan's wife is the most glaring racial anomaly. But the entire cast is similarly anomalous. At least Stephen Boyd and Omar Shariff aren't blond. But Englishmen, James Mason and Robert Morley look hopelessly out of place. (I personally wondered how people of Oriental heritage reacted to Mason's stereotypical pronunciation of the letter "L" as an "R!") I don't really find a lot of fault with the portrayals offered by Mason and Morley, although I do agree with the suggestion of several reviewers that they seem like they wandered in from a production of the Mikado.

Lastly, I cringed at the soundtrack - typically Occidental-sounding pseudo-epic orchestrations with grandiose flourishes. The heroic-sounding 4/4 marches were typical of the Sword and Sandal epics of the day. Only a stray chord here and there suggested an Oriental setting.

In that era, it was inconceivable to cast Orientals in the principal roles of a film of this one's pretensions. Under the circumstances Hollywood would have done better to simply avoid attempts to depict tales of Asian peoples.

In the end, bizarre casting and completely Occidental-sounding music render this film difficult to swallow for a film-goer looking for anything beyond a shallow adventure story. With the number of Oriental actors in Hollywood films today, a GOOD portrayal of the life of Genghis Khan is ripe for filming!

Want to see an example of how to make a useless historical movie, then watch this. Bad casting, poor direction, weak acting and ignorance of history all combined here. Omar Sharif plays the great mongol with "arabic accent".Physically he is a weakling, totally unsuitable to represent a man whose life was full of severe hardships. He never manages to give an impression of greatness. Director seems to have forgotten that the film was about Mongolians. None of the characters except extras are of oriental origin, and except for Robert Morley (Chinese emperor)and James Mason (emperor's courtier and envoy), no other character has a makeup good enough to resemble that race. Incidentally only these two acters manage to impress with their acting. The story of the movie is typically that of a cowboy movie just in a different setting. It is not focussed and has got just a bit of this, that and every thing. Stunts and war scenes are ordinary. The writer neither studied the history nor had a decent knowledge of customs of asian races. The "Conqueror" starring John Wayne is a much better movie on Chengez Khan.

This film would really be better off using a fictional character in the lead role, instead of a historical one, as almost nothing in the story told here about Genghis Khan matches up to accepted history.

Plot In a Nutshell: Mongol tribal leader Temujin (Omar Sharif) tangles with sworn enemy Jamuga (Stephen Boyd) and gathers his strength in neighboring China while dreaming of uniting the various Mongol tribes into an insurmountable Horde.

Why I rated it a '6': as mentioned in my title, I found the film to be OK. Not great, not absolutely terrible. It tells a story about Genghis Khan's beginnings, but it's just a story. It diverges early and often from accepted history, and that unfortunately is a drawback. Watching this film you learn almost nothing about the real Genghis Khan, because virtually all of it is fantasy. If you can live with that, great. Just don't write a term paper about Genghis Khan based on this film is all I can say.

There are many comments in reviews here complaining about the cast, where almost all of the Mongol and Chinese roles are played by non-Asians. While that might be distracting for some, one must understand that movie making is a business. Sure you can stock this film with a bunch of Asian actors, and who in 1965 would go pay to see that? That's not how the business worked. John Wayne famously (or infamously) portrayed Temujin in a different film, and why? Because he was a box-office draw!

Elizabeth Taylor played the Egyptian Cleopatra. Kirk Douglas played the Thracian Spartacus. People would pay to see them, they didn't care what roles they were playing. Same with this film. So you have James Mason and Stephen Boyd and Eli Wallach and Telly Savalas in it. Actors people knew and might pay to see, as opposed to a bunch of unknown but more ethnically accurate ones they won't pay to see. This isn't a hard concept to understand here. Or shouldn't be.

I find it amusing that the same people who complain about the cast in this film have no problem with the cast speaking English in the film. None of these historical characters spoke a word of English. The reviewers here somehow don't complain about that, but do complain because they aren't ethnically Asian? Why doesn't it bother you that every character speaks fluent English, because that's even more off-base than their skin pigment. All of the reviewers complaining here want to see ethnically accurate actors, and then want them to very inaccurately speak English? Lol ok.

A huge negative in this film is the widespread abuse of horses in the battle scenes. It is obvious to the viewer that multiple 'trip wires' were used, causing waves of horses to fall violently while in full gallop and it's just painful to watch. It is highly likely more than one had to be put down as a result of those trip wires, and that's a sad thing to contemplate. If you are a horse lover, I would suggest forwarding over these scenes.

6/10. Would I watch again (Y/N)?: Maybe on a rainy day. Not anytime soon.

The film was ok, spoilt in my opinion by the cruel use of trip wires to bring down the horses during the battle scenes.

My guess is that several horses most probably lost their lives in the making of this motion picture.

I thought the casting of some of the actors was quite strange Sharif was believeable in his roll as Khan, Mason and Morely as Chinese characters, come on and Eli Wallach, I was waiting for the jokes.

All in all the film was ok but could have been so much better and the battle scenes should have been supervised and sanctioned by relevant persons. The film was directed well but the casting was awful.

Omar Sharif stars as Temujin the mongol lord who soon becomes conqueror of half the world. A radical take on actual historical events ( meaning they are completely inaccurate) shows the Mongol in a rather better light than most of the world would view him. His rise from enslavement by Stephen Boyd to leader of a mighty army is done with style and grand spectacle. The sets for peking in the film are excellent and have a sense of supreme stature and beauty as would befit an epic like this. The performances are good , charismatic , mostly from Boyd and Sharif who play off each other well. The only criticisms of this film is the comic performance of Mason as china's ambassador and the script at times is rather flimsy and wooden but can work in its favor to make the film more fun and enjoyable. Not a film to recommend but certainly fun if you are in the mood. To enjoy it however it will require turning a blind eye to the large mistakes. Not a great film but certainly gets a high score for most of it's good points.

Having read Conn Iggulden's Wolf of the Plains trilogy I came to this movie to see more of the Genghis Khan legend. Whilst the novels are themselves loosely based on the history, this movie is way off track. It is difficult to see from this version how Temujin who later became Genghis Khan could have united warring Mongol tribes. It would have needed someone with immense strength of body and character, and Omar Shrarif's character just did not portray this. Robert Morley as the Chinese Emperor was amusing but nobody else had any credibility especially Temujin's wife, Bortei played unconvincingly by Francoise Dorleac as far too western. Considering Genghis Khan achieved the unification of a Mongol nation at the beginning of the 13th Century, the film set looked more like early 20th Century Wild West. Give this one a miss, if you are interested in the history go elsewhere, if it is a good action adventure set in the Mongol steppes then look elsewhere also.

This has about as much to do with the real Genghis Khan as the Hughes film"The Conquerer".If you want to know about the real historical figure,read Lamb's 1920s book.That aside,we have to appreciate the production values of the film.Sets,props,etc.,are all ok.None of these people,however,can scarcely be imagined as Central Asians.Greek Savalas and Alabaman Strode come closest.Wallach,as the Shah,makes an acceptable sly villain,and not an unbelievable Levantine.Everybody else is not only much too European,but much too Nordic,as well.(Sharif is only a minor exception to this generalisation.)And Morley,Mason,and Hordern all act as though they wandered in from a road company of "The Mikado".Watch this film for amusement,and perhaps free-wheeling historical fiction(aka Robert E. Howard),but don't take it too seriously.

Genghis Khan (1965) This is probably not the most accurate of films about Genghis Khan, but at least it's enjoyable in a silly, entertaining way. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I can see it's not all it should be, but I like it nonetheless.

I'm not a big fan of Omar Sharif, but, in the title role, he's rather good and a lot better here than he was in DOCTOR ZHIVAGO or LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.

The film features very stereotypical Chinese characters and co-stars Robert Morely and James Mason both look and act like two characters from Gilbert and Sullivan's THE MIKADO. It's rather ludicrous, but, once again, enjoyable.

Production values are high and Dusan Radic's music score is not only evocative but one of the best from the mid-1960's.

This is a very entertaining film with a highly competent cast. However, the film does have a few problems. The story is about Mongols; however, there are no Mongols (or even Asians) among the primary and secondary cast. Despite this, Omar Sharif gives one of his best performances in this film; not quite as good as Lawrence of Arabia, but better than Dr. Zhivago). Steven Boyd is good as Jumuga, the antagonist to Genghis Khan within the Mongol Hordes.

The production values are very good, but not very accurate when it comes to Mongol horses. They were not the big stallions shown in this film; they were small, almost pony-like size horses that the Mongols rode to world domination.

Despite these drawbacks, the film is successful as an action-adventure epic (despite the ridiculous role of. Robert Morley (one of the most English Englishmen in existence) as the Emperor of China. James Mason as a Chinese businessman and advisor, is also pretty hard to digest. Just allow yourself to enjoy this non-PC,, not historically accurate fanstasy for what it is; A few hours of fun adventure and action about the greatest of all Mongols; Genghis Khan.

It must have seemed a good idea at the time, Omar Sharif as the charismatic leader of the Mongol Horde, uniting the tribes and being generally heroic.

But this really is unwatchable dross for the most part.

The only good bits are the unintentionally funny ones, in which James Mason plays the chief courtier to Robert Morley's Chinese Emperor. They don't quite manage to be successful caricatures, however hard the script writer tried to make them so, but they do have the immense advantage of being horribly miscast.

It stars Omar Shariff as Mongol Temujin who becomes the fearless leader Genghis Khan and unites all Mongol tribes and conquers most of Asia . This Genghis Khan¨ (1965) professional though regularly directed by Henry Levin boasts a good cast as Stephen Boyd , Françoise Dorléac , Telly Savalas , James Mason , Robert Morley , Eli Wallach , Yvonne Mitchell , Michael Hordern , Woody Strode , among others . In this film , there is epic , mammoth spectacle , hokey historical events , a love story , camp dialog to spare , wonderful landscapes and results to be a failed as well a little boring film , at times . Set during the 13th century in which the brutal warrior Mongol chief Temujin conquers most of Asia , Europe and the Middle-East . Temujin was taken prisoner by the rival warlord , the ruthless leader Jamuga and as punishment was forced to wear a large round wooden stock that severely restricted his movements , but with the help of Bortei he manages to getaway . As the fearless Temujin (recently deceased Omar Shariff) battles armies led by Jamuga (Stephen Boyd) and for the love of a princess Bortei (Francoise Dorleac , though Claire Bloom was attached to this project at one point) . He overcomes all of his hardships to become one of the greatest conquerors the world has ever known and now starts his quest to unify all of the Mongol tribes . Genghis gets big hits , but his old nemesis keeps appearing at various times in his life leader to a final fight between the two . As Genghis Khan, ruthless leader of the Mongols and sovereign over the vastest empire ever ruled by a single man, was both god and devil , not just in the Middle Ages , but for centuries to come . Temujin with the help of his underlings (Telly Savalas along with his brother George Savalas , Michael Hordern , Yvonne Mitchell , Woody Strode) becomes the emperor of Mongols , the great Gengis Khan . Temujin conquers the Chinese empire and overthrows the Emperor of China (Robert Morley). He subsequently takes on the Shah of Khwarezm (Eli Wallach) who is backed by his eternal enemy , the brutal and revenger Jamuga . Finally , Temujin conquers Khawrezn , India , Persia , Bokara and Samarkanda . Only once in the furied history of adventure and conquest...did one man rule so vast an empire .

This expensive epic film in familiar drawling fashion contains clichéd barbarian dialogue , noisy action , great production design , monumental battles and a cast of thousands . It results to be a little embarrassing film with some unintentionally hilarious images about Chinese scenarios and failed at box office . Colorful cinematography in 70mm blow-up version by the British , Geoffrey Unsworth , being mostly shot in marvelous exteriors ; although the movie takes place in Asia, the film was shot in Yugoslavia . Rousing as well as evocative musical score by Dusan Radic who also composed another historical film : ¨The long ships¨. This sweeping oriental drama was backed by the great producer Irving Allen , being lavishly financed , in fact , at the time , 1965 , surpassed anything ever filmed before .

The motion picture was middlingly directed by Henry Levin . Ex-actor , director Henry Levin was a previous stage player who had a prolific and long career as filmmaker entering the directing in 1943 about every genre over the next 36 years . His heyday was in the 1960s , when he turned out several bright and frothy sex comedies, notably ¨Belles on their toes , Come fly with me , Honeymoon hotel¨ , his greatest films were on the adventure genre as ¨¨ The wonderful world of Brothers Grimm¨ , ¨The bandit of Sherwood Forest¨ , ¨The return of Monte Cristo¨ and ¨Journey to the center of the earth¨ . Although Levin's forte was light comedies, one of his most interesting films was a dark, brooding western ¨Lonely man¨ (1957) and ¨Desperados¨ , both of them with Jack Palance . He finished his career piloting made-for-television movies, and died on the final day of shooting ¨Scout's Honor¨ (1980) (TV) . Other films dealing with this historical figure , ¨Genghis Khan¨ , are the followings : 1956 version titled ¨The conqueror¨ directed by former movie star Dick Powell and financially supported by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes and lousily directed by Dick Powell starred by John Wayne , Susan Hayward , Pedro Armendáriz , Agnes Moorehead , John Hoyt , Ted De Corsia ; ¨Gengis Khan¨ (2005) by Edward Bazalgette and the best : ¨Mongol¨(2007) by Sergey Bodrov .

I stumbled across this obscure movie earlier today and it was a pretty decent film. Based on the life of Genghis Khan, it's a little bit too scampy on the script but the scenery and music are gorgeous, and you can't go wrong when Bob Simmons (the early James Bond films) is your stunt coordinator. Omar Sharif gave a good performance, but I kept getting distracted by Stephen Boyd every time he appeared onscreen (mainly because in this movie he looks A LOT like a young Timothy Dalton, which is not a problem for me since I'm a big Dalton fan). The only performance I had a problem with was James Mason's campy Chinese ambassador. All in all, not a bad way to spend a couple hours.

I remember seeing an Italian western once, in Italian, with all the Native characters speaking in Italian, sing song "Hey you, Little Bear." This is as bad as that.

This is as bad as Audrey Hepburn playing a Native woman. This is as bad as Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese. This is as bad as the ugly old Blackface musicals.

It starts off pretty badly when you see the veddy English Michael Hoddern speaking-with-a-strong-English-accent. He is the first of many. They seriously decided to ignore the many Asian actors in Hollywood? All of them?

I suppose we should be thankful there's no yellowface makeup like John Wayne tried. But it's as ridiculous as watching a remake of Boyz in the Hood as played by Monty Python. You just keep laughing the whole time.

Points only for the scenery and horses.

Not quite as bad as John Wayne's famed turkey THE CONQUEROR, but getting there. Problem was with this flick, the makers dumped historical accuracy in favor of developing a Ben-Hur-Messala type confrontation between Genghis Khan (Sharif, at the height of his popularity) and his nemesis, a scowling bewhiskered Jamuga (none other than "Messala" himself - Stephen Boyd)

Plenty of Mongol action and cruelty and the concluding battle between Sharif and Boyd is pretty in-your-face stuff. Production values were OK and suitably epic-ish in feel. The wheels start to fall off though with Robert Morley as the Chinese Emperor, some throwback to his role in 55 DAYS IN PEKING and worse, mega-british James Mason as Kam Ling, as likely a chinese adviser to Morley as Adam Sandler playing Abraham Lincoln. In a minor role as Subatai, Kenneth Cope is struggling to hold down any credibility whatsoever, having been first-string comic relief to David Frost on the THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS TV show.

Not for the epic Hall of Fame I'm afraid!