Nomad: The Warrior Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Nomad: The Warrior Blu-ray Movie Review

Wait. . .Genghis Khan was a good guy?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 17, 2011

Television was giving the motion picture a run for its audience money when cinemas starting converting to widescreen formats and historical epics became the film genre du jour. Typically built around some sort of Biblical setting, or a storyline at least tangentially related to religious themes, the historical epic was often high minded if not always historically accurate. A lot of these gargantuan productions turned out the be box office bonanzas for their studios (The Robe, Ben Hur), but even widescreen splendor offering pomp and pageantry couldn’t guarantee audiences lining up around the corner to get into the theater (The Egyptian, about to finally be released on SD-DVD). As the revolutionary spirit of the burgeoning quasi-indie movement of the early 1970’s took over Hollywood, the historical epic slowly lost favor, though there were attempts at more intimate interpretations of the genre with fare like David Lean’s underappreciated Ryan’s Daughter, but “event movies” tended to become special effects spectaculars from the Star Wars era on. Certainly from time to time something like Braveheart or even Dances With Wolves would come along to approximate the historical epics of yore, but the days of such grand films as El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire seem like ancient history themselves now from the vantage point of the early 21st century. In fact both of those Samuel Bronston productions from the early 1960’s seem to be lurking just beneath the surface of an interesting if not always successful Kazakh production, Nomad: The Warrior. This supposed historical feature depicts the story of one Ablai Khan (Kuno Becker), a descendant of Genghis Khan who united the tribes of Kazakhstan in the 18th century.

Nomad reigns as the most expensive feature ever filmed in Kazakhstan, and the film is an often opulent and eye filling spectacle that is filled with brisk action, hordes of extras, and sumptuous sets and costumes. Just like American historical epics of yesteryear, however, Nomad also suffers from some pretty wooden dialogue, cliché-ridden characters and plot points and a sort of surface deep approach to ostensibly weighty matters. Though of course Nomad doesn’t traffic in western religious iconography per se, it certainly doesn’t shirk from a quasi-religious approach, as the Kazakh culture is shown to be prophesying its own Messiah, a savior who will come and unite warring tribes to help forge a new country. That savior turns out to be Ablai Khan, of course. In a sort of nod to The Ten Commandments, Ablai is actually raised away from his own family, though in this case, the roles are somewhat reversed—Ablai is royalty but is raised by a commoner, Oraz (Jason Scott Lee), a man who trains the young boy in the way of the warrior.

The Kazakh culture is probably not very well known to most westerners, though the Americanized word for those from the region—i.e., Cossack—may at least create visions of fierce horsemen able to perform almost acrobatic feats on their equestrian partners. (If you’re a fan of films from the Golden Age of Hollywood and want to see one of the most peculiar depictions of ostensible Cossack culture, I highly recommend the patently strange 1938 Paramount film Ride a Crooked Mile with Akim Tamiroff as an émigré Cossack cattle rustler, Leif Erickson (billed Erikson) as his estranged son, an officer at Leavenworth, and Erickson’s then wife Frances Farmer as a Russian saloon singer. Yes, you read that right). Be that as it may, the exotic locale is one of the best things Nomad has going for it, and the gorgeous windswept steppes of Kazakhstan are utilized to wonderful advantage throughout the film.

Perhaps more problematic are the actual historical and cultural aspects of the film, which don’t offer the visceral pleasures that Kazakhstan’s beautiful scenery does. While the general outline of the plot won’t throw too many people for a loop, hearing someone like Genghis Khan referred to as a “good guy” may in fact strike western audiences as just a bit odd. Also Nomad falls into a few too many standard tropes for its own good, from childhood friends who fight over the same girl to a series of abductions that sees both rivals and the girl being held by a adversarial tribe. Not helping the well worn path this film often trods is sometimes risible dialogue, which at times anyway brings to mind some of those classics from de Mille epics, you know, lines like Anne Baxter’s immortal “Oh, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!”

This multi-national feature was co-directed by Ivan Passer and Sergei Bodrov, and was executive produced by the late Oscar winning director Milos Forman. The film was obviously done in several simultaneous languages, with two versions—one in Kazakh and one in English—prepared for release. (This film in fact features the first time I’ve ever seen a Kazakh Dolby Digital 5.1 track on a Blu-ray). Despite what was no doubt a difficult production, very few of the seams show in the film, aside from the expected clumsy dubbing at times. Both directors seem to have worked well with each other, and the sweeping battle scenes do in fact feature some amazing horseplay (literally), with some impressive tracking shots following Becker as Ablai Khan performing some nice battle moves on top of his favored horse, Moonshine.

The historical epic is a harder sale nowadays than it was back in the 1950’s especially, when the simple allure of a widescreen and “a cast of thousands” was enough to maintain viewers’ interest. Nomad doesn’t always succeed, but its subject matter is unusual enough that those with a soft spot for this sort of quasi-factual humongous production will probably be able to get past the sillier aspects and be able to enjoy the film if for no other reason than its travelogue propensities.

Nomad: The Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nomad's keepcase insert might lead you to believe it's a 300 clone, a CGI spectacular full of sepia toned, semi-hallucinogenic imagery. Nothing could be further from the truth. With an AVC encode, Nomad's image, in 1080p and 2.35:1, is generally quite good, though perhaps a bit on the soft side for some tastes, due at least in part to the film's propensity toward blown out contrast. Colors are one of the strong drawing cards here, especially with regard to the sets, costumes and luscious location photography. A lot of the film is bathed in soft yellow light, but the entire palette bristles with nice saturation and good, if not overwhelming, fine detail. Some of the close-ups, though, do really reveal a pleasing amount of fine detail. There are a few passing artifacting issues, including some brief aliasing and shimmer (it's odd that the chainmail can't resolve correctly, but the ubiquitous dust and dirt do), but overall, Nomad looks at the very least very good, and often excellent, in this Blu-ray presentation.

Nomad: The Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Nomad's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is surprisingly facile and immersive. While the film labors under its multilingual origins, with some fairly shoddy dubbing at times, the fidelity of the soundtrack is excellent, and none of the ADR looped dialogue sounds noticeably different from the bulk of the film. There's quite a bit of very good discrete channel utilization throughout the film, especially in some of the battle scenes, where pounding horse hooves pan around the soundfield impressively. LFE gets some boisterous workout late in the film when the Kazakhs' nemeses start using a "newfangled" weapon—cannons. The roar of cannonballs and the resultant explosions really thunder amazingly in this DTS presentation. Dialogue, score and sound effects are appealingly balanced throughout the film.

Nomad: The Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered.

Nomad: The Warrior Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's kind of silly and at times very predictable, but Nomad held my interest, due in no small part to its unusual setting and subject matter. This is the sort of large scale "historical" filmmaking that Hollywood has largely eschewed, and if it's the province of the Kazakhs now, so be it. Look past the flaws and you'll find an often invigorating and sumptuously beautiful film. Nomad is Recommended.