Baasanjav Mijid

Based on leading scholarly accounts, MONGOL illuminates the life and legend of Genghis Khan. This stunning historical epic delves into the dramatic and harrowing early years of the ruler.

1967. The time of the Cultural Revolution. Chen Zhen, a young student from Beijing, is sent to Inner Mongolia to teach a nomadic tribe of shepherds. But it is Chen who has much to learn – about existence in this enormous, harsh and breathtakingly beautiful wilderness, about community, freedom and responsibility, and about the most feared and revered creature of the steppes – the wolf. Seduced by the complex and near-mystical bond between these sacred creatures and the herdsmen, fascinated by their cunning, their strength, their ferocious beauty, he captures a cub and tries to tame it. But the growing relationship between man and animal – as well as the tribe's ancient way of life, and the land itself – is threatened when a ruthless central government officer decides to eliminate all wolves from the region, whatever the cost.