https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arOyKXnmuWY
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Epic. If you don't know the legend, Tomiris was a nomad queen of the steppes who battled King Cyrus of Babylon in the 5th century BCE. I was unfamiliar with the tale.
This film was made in Kazakhstan, so the locations are stunningly panoramic. It would have been a spectacle on the big screen. The armor and costumes are exotic - I had no idea what steppe nomad attire and armor looked like so it was a cool revelation. It was beautifully actualized. They speak ancient Turkic and Persian, which makes it work even more.
It's long. 2 and a half hours. Starting from Tomiris' childhood, it's a long journey. The first part is what the live-action Mulan should have been. The later chapters are Tomiris' climb to queendom, and her doling out revenge and justice.
It's all about Tomiris. She's played by Almira Tursyn, a psychologist selected from 15K person search. And she nails it. She has the ferocity - uncompromising and vengeful. She sells her horsewomanship, her archery, and mostly her swordswomanship.
That's right. Plenty of sword fights. Some major battles on the steppes, horse soldiers, archers, lancers, chariots, and swords fighters. The battles escalate in intensity as they should in an epic like this. There's some good choreo - a tad heavy on the spin and slash move, but that looks cool. There's a lot of kneeling spin and slashing - I'm not sure that any more effective. But it looks cool. There's a nice battlefield sword fight seduction, and I have a soft spot for those.
Almira makes it work. She's awesome and I hope she continues acting.
So yeah, swordfights. Stabby, choppy, spinning swordfights on big battlefields. It's a bit of alright.