Nomad: The Warrior (2005)

I loved this movie and will watch it again. If you like epic movies, don't miss this one! The acting and directing are excellent. True, it would've been more credible if leading male roles were played by Kazakhs or Asians instead of clearly white- and Latin-looking men. But they did a great job acting (hey, you can't hold someone's appearance against them )) Visually, the movie is very beautiful. Also, amazingly, all battle scenes - including huge masses of people and horses - are live, not comp generated.The story line: it seems the actual historic events were simplified and more touchy personal lines added (as in Troy) to make it more appealing to general viewing population. Also, I hear English subtitles skipped 2/3 of the actual text and even what remained didn't do justice to the original dialogue, with sucks for those of us who don't understand Kazakh. Still, even with this handicap, I was able to enjoy it immensely.Overall, it is a very enjoyable, beautiful and gripping film with the double benefit of getting acquainted with a part of the world most of us are not familiar with.

A film I have seen recently that I really liked was NOMAD. It was directed by Talgat Temenov, Sergei Bodrov, Ivan Passer. It stars Azis Beyshinaliev, Jay Hernandez, Mark Dacascos, Kuno Becker, Archie Kao, Jason Scott Lee, Ron Yuan. NOMAD was written by Rustam Ibragimbekov. This film is a historical film set in 18-th century KAZAKHSTAN, where a young boy Abylai (Kuno Becker), who becomes a KHAN (KING) is destined to make one nation from three JUZS (GROUPS) who fought each other and free them from the Jungars. At the beginning the Jungars attack his mother and the Jungars kill everyone. But one man saves his life and teaches him science and how to fight. After that, Abylai (Kuno Becker) becomes a young man and starts to fight against the Jungars. Before he becomes famous the Jungars capture him. But the Emperor of the Jungars makes a deal with him and gives him a challenge. If he wins, he will be free. The challenge is that Abylai (Kuno Becker) has to fight with one warrior but it is his friend who he will kill by mistake. At the end he becomes a KHAN of all KAZAKH people and makes a KAZAKH nation and they fight against the jun gars together and beat them. But NOMAD is not only about war but also about the love between Abylai and a woman. A famous phrase of Abylai in this fight is 'ARUAK'. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Yeah, right.I spent the first hour waiting patiently for the movie to take off. It was horribly boring, and consisted mostly of people riding randomly around the hills with no apparent direction. Then the hero comes into the picture. Born as an Asian, but when he grew up, he became white. Obviously white. He wasn't even close to passing for Asian. He looked like Justin Timberlake. It was extremely distracting, and the story did nothing to help the cause. Pointless battle sequences and lame dialogue. It's an hour and forty five minutes long, and by the end I was trying to eat my own face. I watched this because people at the video store where I work are always asking me if this movie is any good. Now I have an answer. It goes something like this: ahem. "NO! GOOD GOD NO! IT'S HORRIBLE! DON'T DO THIS TO YOURSELF! I would recommend another movie, perhaps one that's entertaining."

"I think it wasn't necessary to put Nazarbaev's words at the end of the movie. It looks like he did it or he is great leader of the past. "Couldn't agree more on this.My opinion on the movie itself: Regardless all the negative feedbacks, movie is not bad, BUT, the fact that leading roles were played by foreigner is SO disappointing. It's like they couldn't find good kazakh actors.How is it supposed to increase patriotic feelings among people of kazakhstan?? my friends refused to watch this movie due to this fact. Quality of the movie is very good. Music is startling(and some parts of it sounded so familiar). Some people may like, but it in no way made me feel proud for the movie.By the way if you'd like to download the movie in Russian go to onefilm.ru they have two versions of the movie, the one that's DVDrip is of good quality.