Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I write there is a spoiler, but actually, the story line is given up in the first minutes of the film, as a prophecy (hate those. I cannot tell the difference between a prophecy and a spoiler). And it is basically the old Moses story: oppressed people - Saviour has born - baby escapes death from evil tyrant - grows up, kicks his ass, takes his place. The trouble is that instead of a noble cause, like freeing the slaves, there is only crass nationalism. The goal is to replace a foreign despot by a locally grown one... The Kazakh longing to the old days where local tribes ruled the world under the rule of... Attila. This dubious moral is reinforced along the film, where local tribes foolishly prefer freedom to unity behind the divine right leader. No doubt Kazakhstan's 20 year "president for life" was an influential and enthusiastic "sponsor" behind this film. To the movie's credit, it is beautifully executed. Actors play well, action scenes are well done, Kazakh landscapes views are stunning, and costumes and historical rendering of nomadic camps are carefully made and convincing. There is even an exotic, non American centered scent to many scenes. These are the plus of the movie, for the scenario is entirely conventional, predictable and boring for anyone above 11. Dialogues, in particular, are indigent and inexistent, and characters are shallow to the point of being nothing more than a function (brave hero, loyal friend, loving princess...). The scenario, despite being conventional, manages to be inconsistent: the Kazakh are supposed to be submitted to the Jogars, so why on earth do those need to send spies, killers and invade them? The nomadic Kazakh king lives in a stone city... the Jugar warrior is about to storm the city, but stupidly offers a one on one fight instead, the evil king attempts to kill the prophetic child, but gives him many chances to save his life while grown up and having killed his best warrior. And so on... In the end, it is a movie with a Politburo script and imagination, but executed with Hollywood knowhow. The best way to enjoy this movie is probably to mute the sound and enjoy the beautiful pictures.

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 knew nothing of this film before I was convinced to see it by a friend who had heard it was a "non-stop epic battle scene from beginning to end". That couldn't have been further from the truth. This was one of the most boring, poorly written, amateurishly directed, horribly acted films I've ever had the misfortune to lay my eyes upon. I'd rank it up there with the movie I consider to be the worst film of all time... Battlefield Earth. There basically is no story, it's hard to believe that the makers of this film thought that this cheesy soap opera crap would be taken seriously as actual historic fact. It also features some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard... like this little gem... Guy tells girl "You smell like the moon.". Girl replies "What does the moon smell like?" OMG! You have to be kidding me! The scene where the guy was drawn and quartered got some good laughs from the audience since it looked so ridiculously cheap and the sound FX of the guy being ripped apart reminded me of someone making a fart sound with their mouth. If this is playing at a theater near you, avoid it at all costs. This movie is so bad that I actually made the decision about 45 minutes through that I needed to catch up on my sleep... and I did. Awful.

"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.