Friday's best pop song ever

Hitlar (Pakistan, 1986)

Pakistani action god Sultan Rahi would prove his invincibility in over 500 Punjabi language films over the course of his career. (Real life assassins would prove otherwise in 1996, but that's a subject for another, much sadder post.) Given that, you can't blame his producers for occasionally wanting to up the stakes a little. And what better way than to pit their star against the most hated villain of the 20th century... or, at least, his son?

Nonetheless, despite the novelty of its concept, Hitlar plays out like pretty much every other Sultan Rahi movie from its period, which means that we have Sultan and Mustafa Qureshi trying to yell each other to death for two hours before Qureshi bloodily dies in the final reel, while Anjuman shows up periodically to perform an energetic item number to a song voiced by Noor Jehan. And if you think that constitutes a spoiler, you have obviously never watched one of these movies.

For those of us who have, though, there is so much of the familiar in Hitlar that you might think it would be easy to lose sight of the unique gravity of the threat our hero faces. That is, if the film didn't see the need to constantly remind us. This it does by way of a liberally employed "Hitler" theme song, which is both thrillingly disco-fied and completely infectious (seriously, you will find yourself singing it in the streets, no doubt to appalled looks from passers by) and by having echo-laden, off-screen voices shout "HITLER!" at moments of particularly heightened drama -- which means pretty much all the time. And in case there is any doubt in your mind as to whether it is really that Hitler that's being referred to, there are the numerous, swastika-featuring portraits of the man himself that adorn our villain's lair, which essentially serve as the filmmakers' way of saying, "Yes, we totally went there".

And that villain, of course, is Hitlar, the ill-fitting Shirley-Temple-meets-Louis-XIV wig wearing son of Hitler, who, as a shouty prologue narration informs us, fled Germany following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (by Germany, apparently) and found happiness in the arms of a Pakistani woman somewhere in the Punjab. (I owe a great debt, BTW, to Omar Khan for his review of Hitlar over at The Hot Spot Online, which was indispensable as a guide to the finer details of the un-subtitled film's plot.) Old Adolph appears to have passed on sometime between then and the events of this film, but that does not prevent young Hitlar from seeking the counsel of his dad, whom he refers to as "Master", via frequent soliloquies directed toward those aforementioned portraits.

As is typical of the villains portrayed by Mustafa Qureshi in these films, there is a tragic aspect to Hitlar, and a history that frames his despicable acts as being as much the product of pain as malicious intent. Clearly Hitlar has his own scores to settle, as well as his own steely sense of honor to uphold, which means that, as it has been since the two actors first paired off against each other in the classic Maula Jatt,  Qureshi and Rahi are depicted as being, to some extent, two sides of the same coin. In flashback, we see that life in Pakistan has not always been Springtime for the Hitlers. As a child, Hitlar was forced to watch as his beloved uncle was murdered in cold blood by a fearsome local bandit, thus leading to the boy's first, embryonic attempts at the throaty bellowing of bone curdling, vengeful oaths.

In present time, this seething lust for payback has translated into Hitlar terrorizing the people of his small village by having his thugs repeatedly raze the place and assassinate its most prominent citizens. This scenario has a rural-centric aspect to it that reminds me of  the Filipino Darna films. The idea that the offspring of one of history's most coldblooded seekers of empire would be content to exercise his thirst for domination over a dusty patch of rural Pakistan seems much like those films in which invaders from another planet seem to have specifically targeted for conquest the tiny, jungle-bound village in the Philippines that  the superheroine Darna's alter ego calls home.

In any case, the first encounter between the forces of Hitlar and "Sultan" -- the virtuous, mother-loving village boy played by an anything but boyish Rahi -- occurs at the center of what appears to be a stunt racing track, where Sultan witnesses one of the gang's assassinations. This creates the opportunity for one of those fights, rich with flipping, flying kicks and exaggerated Superman leaps, that are the bread-and-butter of Hitlar, while giving us the simultaneous spectacle of a beat-up car somewhat pointlessly circling the combatants at 90 degree angles.

Once Sultan has been established as a threat to Hitlar and his gang, the son of Hitler decrees that he should be eliminated... by bears. We are thus gifted with a scene in which Sultan Rahi fights for his life against a trio of guys in shabby bear costumes, which is so awesome that I won't even attempt to describe it beyond that. Suffice it to say that the attempt is unsuccessful, thanks in part to the intervention of a notorious bandit leader by the name of Rustam Khan, who, for the benefit of those who feel that Hitlar does not have enough plot already, is later revealed to be Sultan's father.

 

The bear attack sets off the cycle of alternately yelling and punching-based confrontations between Hitlar and Sultan that will make up the bulk of Hitlar's running time, the most stirring of these being a fight that takes place atop a people-mover. Like many of Rahi's movies, Hitlar proceeds as if its script was just one big exclamation point, its every scene the buildup to an apocalyptic crescendo that is endlessly postponed. To the resultant furious tempo, helmer Idrees Khan's unique directorial quirks add an element of the fevered. In addition to the usual tilty-cam style of cinematography, the director has a fondness for psychedelic optical effects that ensure the viewers eyes no respite from assault. Nor will that viewer's ears be spared, thanks to the traditional employment of thunder crashes, non plot-driven sirens, and everyone's lusty shouting being made to sound like the voice of god thanks to liberal use of the echo-plex.

On the merciful side, those ears will be happy to learn that most of the songs in Hitlar are actually quite nice, and Khan's picturizations of them often quite interesting as well. This compliments the director's particular approach to visual symbolism, which seems to center around a yen for depicting large groups of any one particular item -- feathers, oranges, scarves, discs baring Hitlar's name -- floating through the air in slow motion.

Of course, all of that is just garnish, the meat of the dish being that this is a movie in which Sultan Rahi fights the son of Hitler, and that the son of Hitler is depicted therein as being a strangely effeminate, adult incarnation of Little Lord Fontleroy who is nonetheless capable of besting an opponent with a flying kung fu kick. It sounds too good to be true, I know, but the fact is that the end product is deliriously entertaining. And for those moments where you feel your brain pulling away from the proceedings, convinced that what it is perceiving cannot actually be, the film's soundtrack is always happy to offer a helpful reminder: "HITLAAAR!!"

Battle of the babbling bloggers... from Hell!

So, Tars Tarkas and I got together a few days back and had a VERY rambling conversation that mostly concerned Taiwanese fantasy martial arts films with people wearing rubber monster costumes in them... and now YOU, you lucky devil, can listen to it in all its lo-fi glory, thanks to the podcast that Tars has just posted over at his site, TarsTarkas.net. Thrill as we fill the air with random and unfounded speculation -- in some cases about movies that we haven't even seen -- and digress onto a variety of topics that include Korean knock-off toys and Sean Connery's diaper. Truly, the internet will never be the same.

Weird weird movie

Have you ever sat down and really thought about just how fucking weird the movie Wild Wild Planet is? I have, and you can now view the results of my ruminations, which have just been posted over at Teleport City.

Friday's best pop song ever

Fighting Femmes, Fiends, and Fanatics Episode 1: Lunatic Frog Women

As promised, here's the debut episode of my pal Steve Mayhem's video blog Fighting Femmes, Fiends, and Fanatics, this time dealing with the extremely well-named, cheapjack Taiwanese actioner Lunatic Frog Women. (And, hey, isn't that Cheng Pei Pei in the role of chief frog woman?) As mentioned earlier, I'll be acting as an on-again-off-again guest host on the vlog starting with Episode 2, which I'll be posting in two weeks time. In the meantime, both Steve and I are eager to hear your feedback, so please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

Asesinos de Otros Mundos (Mexico, 1971)

For me, Asesinos de Otros Mundos was the movie that started it all. That’s not to say that is was the first Santo film I ever saw; in fact, far from it. But, for some reason, it was the first Santo film I ever saw that made me slam my fist decisively on the arm of my sofa and declare that I simply had to document my reactions to it in writing. As such, it became the first film reviewed for The Lucha Diaries, the project that would launch me on my illustrious career as a guy writing about movies that nobody cares about on the internet for no money or prestige.

Now, while elegant in its own way, my initial review of Asesinos was done in the elliptical, self-obsessed fashion typical of my early Lucha Diaries efforts, and as such doesn’t shine as much light on its putative subject as I would become accustomed to doing once I became more, er, seasoned. Given that –- and following upon a recent re-viewing of this treasure –- I decided it was time to give Asesinos de Otros Mundos its due. And so it begins…

A madman is holding Mexico in a grip of terror, his weapon a creature at once so baffling and terrifying that its confused victims don’t know whether to scream or piss themselves laughing:

If you guessed “marauding space blob realized by way of roughly a dozen people scurrying around clumsily underneath a shabby looking tarp”, give yourself a big 4DK pat on the back.

Asesinos de Otros Mundos is that rare Santo film that jumps right into the action, and so, following the opening credits, we are immediately shown a rapid series of hilarious deaths, after which the authorities determine that there is only one man to deal with the situation: El Enmascarado de Plata, SANTO! No sooner has El Santo arrived at the office of National Police Chief O’Connor (Marcos Antonio Campos), than the aforementioned madman, Malkosh (waxy font of villainy Carlos Agosti), appears on the TV demanding $10 million in gold within 24 hours or else. Then he laughs. MWA HA HA HA!

Santo, Chief O’Connor and some other officials take advantage of the 24 hour deadline to argue amongst themselves in a conference room decorated with a photo of Marilyn Monroe and essentially do nothing of consequence. As a result, the deadline passes and more random people have the flesh stripped from their bones by the space blob. It is then decided that perhaps it might be best to pay Malkosh the ransom. But the authorities have a trick up their sleeve: SANTO!

Our hero stows away aboard the plane delivering the loot, and when Malkosh and his cronies arrive to greet it, he emerges like a whirlwind of slightly paunchy, middle-aged fury. Unfortunately, Santo underestimates his foe somewhat, and when Malkosh takes to a car to make his getaway, Santo finds that running directly toward it while waving his arms is not sufficient to make it stop.

Santo is knocked out by the force of Malkosh’s car driving directly into him at high speed and, when he wakes up, he finds himself in Malkosh’s lair, where he is forced to do battle with a couple of gladiators on the same set where they faked the moon landing.

Lucha movie novices may be confused by the epic length of this gladiator sequence, but keep in mind that, in Asesinos de Otros Mundos, this stands in for what, in any other Santo movie, would be a lengthy, statically shot and totally non-plot-driven sequence of Santo fighting some anonymous opponent in the ring. So consider yourselves lucky.

Anyway, when Santo proves more than a match for the gladiators, Malkosh decides to call in a guy in a heat suit with a flamethrower to make things interesting. However, Santo makes short work of pretty much everybody by grabbing a machine gun away from one of Malkosh’s guards and letting loose. Malkosh himself is mortally wounded, but before he dies, he takes Santo to his lab to show him the moon rock from which the space blob came. (On an autobiographical, human interest note: When I was eight, I waited in line for an hour to see the moon rock. It was totally boring, and by that I mean in a “not at all having a ravenous, rapidly evolving space bacteria attached to it” kind of way.)

Sadly for Malkosh, he is eaten by the escaped blob before having the pleasure of dying from his many Santo-inflicted bullet wounds. And thus it would seem that, only a third of the way into Asesinos de Otros Mundos, we have lost our villain, but it is of no matter. For word has gotten out, and now every bad guy in town wants to have a murderous space blob of his own. Chief among these is the frothing gangster Licur (Juan Gallardo), who keeps both captives and minions alike –- including his girlfriend -- in check by means of locked collars that emit poison gas at his command.

Licur goes about achieving his goal by kidnapping Professor Bernstein (hey, it’s Santo’s manager, Carlos Suarez), a noble scientist who’s in possession of another blob-bearing moon rock, along with Bernstein’s daughter Karen (Sasha Montenegro, in a shattering array of psychedelic cat suits). Fortunately, Santo is able to take one look at some dirt found on the shoe of one of Licur’s captured henchmen and determine exactly where his hideout is. Now all that lies between him and glory is a greasy expanse of pulsating plastic sheeting,

Now, if I understand correctly, the blob here is described as being sort of like a tumor, which means that Asesinos de Otros Mundos itself could be described as the film in which Santo punches cancer in the face -- or, at least, you might think so. The fact is, however, that Santo never actually fights the blob in Asesinos de Otros Mundos. You see, given that Santo’s super power is wrestling, an amorphous mass of tissue makes for a particularly poor opponent, thanks in no small part to the difficulty inherent in assessing its weak points. As I pointed out in my first review, even if Santo was able to lift the blob up and twirl it around over his head, how would he know which end of it to then slam down upon the mat? Surely head-butting it would be inadvisable.

So what Santo instead does when confronted with the blob is run away. A lot. He also fulfills his role as protector mainly by encouraging those in his charge to also run away from the blob whenever possible. Now that I think of it, this may be the main thing that director Ruben Galindo -- who also directed Santo vs. Las Lobas, a film in which Santo gets quite scared by, and then runs away from, some dogs -- contributes to the whole Santo mythos: this whole idea of Santo as a super hero who employs the tactic of getting frightened and running away as part of his whole crime fighting bag of tricks.

Anyway, in a manner that some might describe as predictable (cuh!), Santo makes his way to Licur’s hideout, making quick work of him and his minions before ultimately leaving them all to die by their own evil creation! He then frees Karen and her father, setting the stage for Asesinos de Otros Mundos’ thrilling, 100% running away finale.

For some reason, in my first review of Asesinos de Otros Mundos, I described it as being something of a terrible movie. However, upon watching it again, I now find it to be a warm slice of pure B movie bliss. This is perhaps because, in the intervening years, I have seen just how bad a Santo movie can be, and have adjusted my standards accordingly. But really, I think that you, too, will share my appreciation for Asesinos de Otros Mundos if you are willing to take part in the following, thoroughly undemanding little brain exercise : Think of The Creeping Terror. Now think of The Creeping Terror, but with a masked wrestler beating up bad guys added to it. See? It’s a clear case of the perfect made perfect-er.

On top of that, Asesinos de Otros Mundos generously affords me one of the greatest joys of watching Santo movies, and that’s seeing our star repeatedly acting upon what are quite obviously the shouted instructions of his director in absolutely the most literal-minded manner possible. (“OK, Santo, now run toward the car and wave your arms!”) There’s really no “lose” here. And so I must congratulate myself, once again, for giving my fledging interwebs film writing project such an appropriate and auspicious start. After these long years, Asesinos de Otros Mundos has become like the sickening, pulsating blob that now sits where my heart used to be.

Coming soon!

Below is a teaser for my pal Steve Mayhem's new video blog, Fighting Femmes, Fiends, and Fanatics, which I'll be intermittently guest hosting starting with Episode 2. I'll be posting Episode 1 next Tuesday, so get ready to weigh in with your typically courteous and eloquent commentary.

Friday's best pop song ever

Tiga Abdul (Singapore, 1964)

In Malaysia, P. Ramlee is an artist of such stature that he has buildings and institutions named after him. (Yes, that’s plural.) He rose to fame as a singer, instrumentalist and composer in the late 40s, and soon thereafter became a star on the big screen, adding the title of director to his formidable list of accomplishments only a few years later. Tiga Abdul (or 3 Abdul), a 1964 production from Shaw Brothers’ Singapore-based Malay language division, shows the multi-talented Ramlee firing on all cylinders, acting both as star and director, while also singing musical numbers that he wrote and arranged for the film.

Based on a traditional Malaysian folk tale, Tiga Abdul takes place in a fictionalized, time warp version of Istanbul in which everyone wears 60s fashions but still buys and sells slaves in the marketplace. It also appears that every man to a one is born with a fez attached to his head. With most films in which a guy in a fez appears, you could describe him as “the guy in the fez” and feel secure in the fact that you have been sufficiently specific, but, in the case of Tiga Abdul, that would quite literally describe every man who appears on screen. Furthermore, while none of these men are shown sleeping, I imagine that, if they were, they would be shown wearing their fezzes. If not, someone might notice that they are all Southeast Asians who look nothing like what most people’s idea of a Turk is. In short, Tiga Abdul is a real fez-apalooza.

Anyway, Ramlee plays Abdul Wahub, the youngest of three brothers who are all named Abdul. As the film repeatedly strives at the expense of all subtlety to make clear, Abdul Wahub is the most virtuous of these brothers. He is even at one point shown wearing a white suit in conspicuous contrast to their black ones, and is frequently shown gazing reprovingly upon their greedy, hedonistic antics. This, while effective in establishing the elder Abduls’ lack of character, also comes very close to presenting Abdul Wahub as being a bit on the priggish and judgmental side. Luckily, this impression is mitigated somewhat when we see Abdul Wahub in the music shop he owns, rocking out on the electric guitar with pseudo-Turkey’s fez-wearing version of The Ventures.

When the wealthy father of the three Abduls dies suddenly without leaving a will, the eldest Abdul, the grasping Abdul Wahab (Haji Mahadi), is charged with divvying up the inheritance. Likely because Abdul Wahub so obviously hates both of them -- but also because they only care about money, while Abdul Wahub cares about art and music and feelings and stuff -- elders Abdul Wahab and Abdul Wahib decide to split the old man’s vast fortune in assets between themselves, leaving Abdul Wahub with only their father’s rundown mansion to show for his filial devotion. At the same time, an unscrupulous friend of their father’s, Sadiq Segaraga (Ahmad Nisfu), has his own eyes on their newly acquired fortune, and goes about getting it by launching his three attractive young daughters at the boys like so many hourglass-shaped, heat seeking missiles.

Both of the older brothers fall head over heels for these lovelies, and it is only the upright Abdul Wahub who sees through the ruse, greeting the tentative advances of Segaraga’s youngest daughter Ghasidah (Sarimah) with nothing but scorn and reproach. Soon the elder Abduls are approaching Segaraga and asking for his daughters’ hands in marriage, at which point the old trickster springs a contract on them that stipulates that, once married, they can never become angry, lest they should forfeit all of their assets to him and be sold into slavery. The two foolishly agree to this and the wedding bells chime, after which Segaraga, quite unsurprisingly, makes a dedicated project out of making them angry as quickly as possible, first by denying them access to anything beyond the aroma of food, and then by barring them from the marital bed. Needless to say, it’s not long before both are penniless, on the block, and up for sale to the highest bidder.

Soon after these developments, Abdul Wahub’s father appears before him in a dream. Now, given that Tiga Abdul has up to this point exhibited a sort of fanciful, fairytale-like quality, you might expect this to be the juncture at which things will take something of an enchanted turn. But in a surprising display of fiscal pragmatism from beyond the grave, Dad instead advises young Abdul to pay a visit to his lawyer. Once done, this lawyer informs Abdul that, in addition to the domestically accrued fortune that his brothers have inherited, Abdul’s dad also had overseas assets of even greater value, all of which now belongs to him. Now having reaped the huge cash rewards that are the right of any truly virtuous soul, Abdul Wahub sets about scheming with the lawyer to win his brothers’ freedom and deliver Segaraga his comeuppance.

This scheme will ultimately involve Abdul Wahub marrying Ghasidah and then turning her father’s contract back against him, with the result that, after a number of convolutions, Abdul Wahub will end up turning just about everyone involved into human chattel and buying them for himself. He does this, of course, so that he may ultimately free them, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t first harangue them about how awful they all are. The moral of this age old fable, then? Don’t fuck with Abdul Wahub. Oh, and? Get a lawyer. It’s basically like a folk tale written by an MBA.

As a lead actor, Ramlee gives a competent but not especially charismatic or developed performance here, which leads me to suspect that, for his audience, his status as a beloved entertainer was a suitable stand-in for characterization. His musical contributions to the film, furthermore, give us a solid idea of just why that might have been. Ramlee’s tunes are so beguilingly melodious, and the manner in which he sings them –- when he takes the lead -- so relaxed and agreeable, that I ended up wishing that he hadn’t been so stingy with them, and had instead provided more than just the three. Especially nice is the film’s devilishly catchy theme tune, which is sung by Ramlee’s wife, Salmah “Saloma” Ismail, who appears in the delightfully modish credit sequence, singing in split screen as the titles roll beside her.

As for his talents behind the camera, Ramlee’s directorial hand is not flamboyant, but sufficient to get the story told on the obviously limited budget that was provided. It’s becoming apparent to me that the Shaw Brothers’ Malaysian productions were nowhere near as lush as those made by their Hong Kong division, and here that’s evidenced by the preponderance of tiny sets and matte painted exteriors. Still, Ramlee nonetheless manages to conjure up an appropriate, “fractured fairytale” atmosphere with the application of mischievous cartoonish touches and visual puns. He also keeps things moving along briskly, which, with a story that is so obviously grinding inevitably toward a predetermined and all-too-clearly visible moral conclusion, is always welcome.

Having seen Tiga Abdul’s toe-tapping credit sequence on YouTube, I was hoping for it to be an exotic 60s time capsule with cultish appeal. What I got instead was a modest little film with an abundance of quirky charm. I also, as mentioned above, got more fezzes than I could ever have imagined seeing onscreen at one time. Nonetheless, you don’t have to be an enthusiast of traditional Ottoman headwear in order to appreciate this one. But if you are, you might want to wear yours for the viewing.

Mission drift

This month over at Teleport City we'll be focusing exclusively on science fiction. And by that I mean the groovy kind (for example, see Keith's review of Moon Zero Two). As part of that, I've re-posted my 4DK review of Mission Stardust, the lone big screen appearance by that fictional German space jockey Perry Rhodan. But lest you think this is just an instance of lazy rehash on my part, please note that this version of the review features more and expanded screen caps. So it's really like a deluxe, collector's edition of the original review... or a director's cut. Can a 3D version be far behind?

Tsog Taij (Mongolia, 1945)

Tsog Taij is one of the earliest surviving examples of Mongolian cinema, and may represent an instance of me biting off somewhat more than I can chew. Not only do I know very little about Mongolia, but Tsog Taij is a film whose story is at least nominally rooted in the country’s 17th century history, about which I know even less. To compound matters considerably, it’s also a work of propaganda and, as such, is heavily influenced by the nationalist politics of its time. This means that historical veracity likely took a back seat to whatever ideological points needed to be made -- though in which instances that occurred I’d be loathe to speculate. In short, I’m asking that you forgive a little blind groping on my part (no, not of you… I meant that totally metaphorically), because the alternative would be a review made up almost entirely of cut and pasted bits from various Wikipedia articles.

Our hero here, Tsog Taij, was indeed a real Mongolian prince, but I imagine that he was chosen as a protagonist less for his objective accomplishments than for his rhetorical utility as an enemy of Tibetan Buddhism. The Soviets had a very hands-on involvement in Mongolian cinema at the time, which had been designated by the ruling Revolutionary Party to serve as a tool for socialist instruction (yes, Tea Partiers, just like in Hollywood!), and so it’s not all that surprising that a story about Mongolia’s battle for the control of Tibet would be skewed to become a teachable moment about the evils of organized religion. Still, for those of us accustomed to the more sympathetic portrayals of the Dalai Lama and his followers that are common today, there is indeed some dark novelty in seeing them cast as the craven oppressors of the people that they are here. And while it is true that the Buddhists made use of the Swastika for many hundreds of years before the Nazis appropriated it -– and toward very different ends --, it’s hard to imagine that Tsog Taij’s shots of their forces marching under flags adorned with it were not meant to conjure associations with certain, much more recent events.

Tsog Taij opens upon the aftermath of a battle near the Tibetan border, in which the forces of Lingden Khan (Bat-Ochir), the last descendant of Genghis Khan, have been crushed by forces lead by Manchurian general Ambagi Tsetsen. As they make their retreat, the ailing Lingden hands the sword of Genghis to a messenger, instructing him to take it to Tsog Taij in Mongolia, and, further, to instruct Taij to muster his forces and join him at the front. Meanwhile, an emissary from the Gelugpa -- or “Yellow Hat" -- Buddhist sect approaches Ambagi Tsetsen and pledges the Dalai Lama’s allegiance, while at the same time asking for assurances that theirs will be decreed the official religion of those areas of Mongolia that fall under Manchurian control.

Meanwhile, back in Mongolia, we see the common folk being generally ground down under the Yellow Hats’ collective boot heels, being forced to chant mantras, bow down before their Nazi symbol, and whatnot, all of which meets with spirited opposition from the noble Tsog Taij (Tsegmeb). Taij further angers his rival, Khush Khan -- a prince who has aligned himself with the Yellow Hats –- when his son, Arslan Taij (Tserendendev), embarks upon a Romeo and Juliet-style romance with Khush Khan’s daughter Khulan (Dolgorsuren). In retaliation, Khush Khan takes the occasion of Taij and his troops being away on maneuvers as an opportunity to stage a late night assault on the prince’s castle, during which Taij’s mother and many of the members of his court are brutally slaughtered by Khush Khan’s Yellow Hat soldiers. Rather than entering into a civil war, as Khush Khan seems intent on provoking him into, the grief stricken Taij, upon returning, proclaims that he will instead take the fight to Tibet itself. Fortuitously, it is almost at this precise moment that Lingden Khan’s messenger appears bearing the sword of Genghis Khan.

And this is only the beginning of Tsog Taij, for, from here, we will go on to see our hero and his forces battle their way across Tibet’s borders, and then proceed onward toward Lhasa. There he will meet with betrayal at the hands of his own son, who, seduced by the evil Lamas –- with the help of a beautiful and licentious Tibetan princess and some of the local libations –- crosses over to the other side, thus destining himself for a traitor’s death under the executioner’s blade. All leads to a final confrontation between the armies of Taij and Khush Khan, during which Taij is mortally wounded, but still finds the strength for one last rousing plea for Mongolian national unity before decorously expiring.

Despite its three hour length and scrupulous-seeming period detail, Tsog Taij is prevented by the glaring nakedness of its (then) present day agenda from truly capturing the viewer within its epic sweep. This problem is further compounded by the fact that director T. Khurlee, despite having the extras, the props, and the scenery to accomplish the task, wastes them by failing to shoot the pivotal battle scenes with any kind of dynamism, instead making them come off as somewhat static and clunky. Where he does capture an appropriate sense of grandeur is in those quieter, tension-filled moments that both lead up to and follow those battles, such as in his sweeping shots of the carnage left in the wake of the film’s opening melee and the scenes of huge, silent armies trudging their way across vast, wind whipped plains.

Make no mistake about it; Tsog Taij is indeed a handsome looking, technically accomplished film -- thanks in no small part, I imagine, to an influx of Soviet funding and talent. However, those who are looking for a rousing period war picture are likely to come away disappointed. As much as it might have aided its cause, Tsog Taij apparently forgot to be that, instead losing sight of such objectives in the course of pursuing other priorities.