A MONGOLIAN TALE Movie Review

Hei Ma

A young boy is sent to live with an orphan girl and a foster grandmother in the Mongolian grasslands. The boy and girl become extremely close, and when she's grown and becomes pregnant by a lover, the brother runs off out of anger and jealousy. Twelve years later he comes back; he's a celebrated musician now, but his “sister” and his entire remembered world have changed in ways he couldn't have imagined. Xie Fei's film reaches for epic sweep and comes very close, though the director has insisted on just a bit too much plot in slightly too short a time. Nevertheless, this is a physically magnificent film with many exquisite and haunting sequences, and its portrait of the inevitability of change rings universally true. Tengger, an allegedly popular Chinese rock star, is the lead actor in A Mongolian Tale, and also provided the inventive musical score.

NEXT STOP … Girl from Hunan, Close to Eden, The Searchers

1994 105m/C CH HK Narenhua, Tengger; D: Xie Fei; W: Zhang Chengzhi; C: Jing Sheng Fu; M: Tengger. Montreal World Film Festival ‘95: Best Director (Fei). VHS NYF