Mongol (2008)

Image credit: Alexander Zabrin

KHAN MAN Tadanobu Asano as the 12th-century military tactician who would become Genghis in Mongol

Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov contrasts images of sweeping landscape and propulsive battle with potent scenes of emotional intimacy in Mongol, his quite grand, quite exotic, David Lean-style epic, a foreign-language Oscar nominee. Here are the early-12th-century days of Temudgin (Tadanobu Asano, from Japan), the brilliant military tactician who would become Genghis Khan, with emphasis on Temudgin's loving relationship with his wife (Khulan Chuluun, from Mongolia) and his frenemy relationship with his ''blood brother'' Jamukha (Honglei Sun, from China). B+