120 minutes

"Do not scorn a weak cub," advises Mongol as the film begins, "he may become a brutal tiger."

Welcome to the world of Genghis Khan, eventual uniter of the Mongolian tribes, captured in a historical wide-screen epic about the legendary warrior and emperor that feels like a throwback to historical dramas of half-a-century ago. Was he a savior or a menace? A hero or a villain? Perhaps both?

That's what Mongol addresses with muscle and thought. As Kazakhstan's entry to the Oscars, it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 2007, and it's easy to see why.

The first installment of a proposed trilogy dramatizing Genghis Khan's entire life, it chronicles his formative years, when he was known as Termudgin. He would spend much of the late-twelfth-and-early-thirteenth centuries as a slave in Central Asia before going on to the considerable conquests of his adulthood, as the leader of a group of nomadic clans.