Saw this movie tonight at the local art house theater with my wife and we just adored it. It's presentation of poorly translated, likely exaggerated-over-time oral history (with some artisitc license, but nothing that wouldn't be out of character for Khan) was a huge success, constantly throughout the film I kept thinking "you know, that's not how it probably really happened, BUT I can see how people would, at the time, tell their children what happened".
The main actors/characters were all quite internally consistent and well-developed and the storyline was heavy with romance and family drama , which were very well integrated into the overall historical narrative. The harsh brutality of the mongolian steppes always seemed to hang over the main character's heads and you could feel their frustrations with the current status quo driving them to undertake the bold actions to bring about change and reform.
If you have it showing a a theater near you, go give it a whirl before it gets onto DVD. This is sort of a movie, with its visceral, well-executed action scenes and stunning panaromas of the mongolian steppes (in various seasons) is one of those movies that you really should check out on the big screen.
