A love develops amongst beautiful scenery between two cousins brought up by their grandmother. As they grow, their life draws apart, both taking a different path. How simple a story you say? Yes, but it is how you tell it and director Fei Xie achieves a melancholy beauty by creating real humans that touch your emotions.
7 Reviews
The outstanding love movie without a single kiss.
boliwar127 April 2004
I had visited Mongolia several years earlier than I watched this film. Watching it, I found natural climate of the difficult daily-life of Mongolian - straightforward and generous people. The beauty of Mongolian grassland, poverty of small villages and daily problems were shown as it I had remembered - this reality is one of reasons one should see this movie.
However, the most striking feature of the film is the way in which love was showing. In this relatively long movie (almost 2 hours), we cannot find any "love scenes" characteristic for the point of view of the western cinematography. Paradoxically, I am convinced this is the greatest love-film I have ever seen. It shows how love appears, grows, how life can turn out to be hard when still loving, and how it can survive despite severe circumstances.
However, the most striking feature of the film is the way in which love was showing. In this relatively long movie (almost 2 hours), we cannot find any "love scenes" characteristic for the point of view of the western cinematography. Paradoxically, I am convinced this is the greatest love-film I have ever seen. It shows how love appears, grows, how life can turn out to be hard when still loving, and how it can survive despite severe circumstances.
A realistic description of love
zzmale19 November 2003
which appropriately fits the modern day psychology.
Prolonged separation does harm relationships no matter how deep the devotion is at the very beginning. Time changes, things change and so are people, and vows made would often fade with time. Long period of waiting due to strong dedication that finally lead to the reunite with childhood love does happen, but very rarely, and the split up described in the movie is far more common reality.
Under the disguise of beautiful setting, even somewhere as remote as Inner Mongolia and life as simple as nomads cannot escape the problem of modernity.
Prolonged separation does harm relationships no matter how deep the devotion is at the very beginning. Time changes, things change and so are people, and vows made would often fade with time. Long period of waiting due to strong dedication that finally lead to the reunite with childhood love does happen, but very rarely, and the split up described in the movie is far more common reality.
Under the disguise of beautiful setting, even somewhere as remote as Inner Mongolia and life as simple as nomads cannot escape the problem of modernity.
a story that spans cultural differences
jbgrelber15 March 2006
I saw this film on VHS and I wish it were on DVD.This is a great film-it takes place over a long period of time and touches upon a very universal situation regardless of who you are or where you're from.It's about relationships and choices and the consequences of what we decide.And it has great cinematography as well as acting.there is no sex and virtually no violence(okay,a punch in the nose),yet it is riveting by the virtue that anyone who's lived a normal life has experienced what happens.There is an air of melancholy about this film,but it never becomes cloying.I felt at the end of this film that I had shared a journey with the actors because I had some similar things happen in my life-remember Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken"or a poem by Emily Dickinson that begins"I had long been away from home....".This is a film to watch over many times.
my favourite movie, absolutely wonderful
kazamidori23 July 2001
I just have to say 'A Mongolian Tale' is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. The music is fabulous, and I recommend the soundtrack as well! I hope more people will watch and be moved because it is worth it to hunt out this movie.
Beautiful and strange
Starmist324 July 2002
'A Mongolian Tale' is a compelling movie, both because of its unusual setting in Mongolia and its melancholy love story. The Mongolian language is interesting to listen to throughout the movie, and the grassland and mountains are incredibly beautiful. 'A Mongolian Tale' is particularly enjoyable if you are interested in the people and culture of Mongolia. The story can move slowly at times, but the aesthetic appeal partly makes up for this flaw. It is a haunting story about love and forgiveness and a beautiful portrayal of the way of life of the Mongolian nomads.
Love lost in the grasslands
esteepswong18 December 2003
This 1995 film, renamed for the world market in 1997, is a travelogue-cum-love story set in the steppes of Mongolia. Helm by Chinese director Xie Fei, the story is about a Chinese boy sent to a farm in Outer Mongolia by his single father to be raised by his foster grandma.
The old woman (Dalarsurong) also has a young girl named Somiya (Bayirtcya), and the boy, Bayinbulag (Ganghulag), falls in love with her as they grow up together in the idyllic grasslands. Years later, when Bayinbulag (now played by singer-composer, Tengger) returns from his studies in the city, he proposes to Somiya (Narenhuar) and plans their wedding. However, when he discovers an incident that happened in his absence, Bayinbulag is shattered by it. He forsakes his true love and goes back to China. But Bayinbulag does not find happiness in the city. When he returns to visit Somiya 12 years later, he learns where his heart really lies and that morality derives from Nature and not from society's rules.
This touching love story, scripted by Zhang Cheng-zhi from his novel Hei Ma (Black Steed), is rather slow-moving and abstract. But there is a poetic quality in this deceptively simple tale of love, loss, redemption and forgiveness that is endearing to the discerning movie-goer.
Narenhuar, best known for her Girl from Hunan, is flawless as Somiya, a self-reliant and unspoilt woman of the grasslands.
The old woman (Dalarsurong) also has a young girl named Somiya (Bayirtcya), and the boy, Bayinbulag (Ganghulag), falls in love with her as they grow up together in the idyllic grasslands. Years later, when Bayinbulag (now played by singer-composer, Tengger) returns from his studies in the city, he proposes to Somiya (Narenhuar) and plans their wedding. However, when he discovers an incident that happened in his absence, Bayinbulag is shattered by it. He forsakes his true love and goes back to China. But Bayinbulag does not find happiness in the city. When he returns to visit Somiya 12 years later, he learns where his heart really lies and that morality derives from Nature and not from society's rules.
This touching love story, scripted by Zhang Cheng-zhi from his novel Hei Ma (Black Steed), is rather slow-moving and abstract. But there is a poetic quality in this deceptively simple tale of love, loss, redemption and forgiveness that is endearing to the discerning movie-goer.
Narenhuar, best known for her Girl from Hunan, is flawless as Somiya, a self-reliant and unspoilt woman of the grasslands.
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