euroasiangenetic An interesting movie but longer it goes more boring it gets.During the Mongolian invasion of Kazakhstan, young little Sartai lose his mom. He grows up in the montain and learned with other young people to become assassins and fight back for their country. After a few successful missions, Sartai becomes a folk hero and legend. Which makes their leader jealous, specially when one of the female assassin shows interest for Sartai.It's an interesting story but the problem is that the story is not long enough for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Most of the scenes end up being fillers, and the quality is not strong enough for that filler and the acting isn't strong enough for a 2 hours movie.If the movie was 1 hour and 30 minutes then it could have been a remembered movie but it is over 2 hours and is just a forgotten filler movie.

brin-t-murray Myn Bala the Kazakh movie Well, first movie I've ever seen on IMDb with only one review (three now, since I wrote this). It's the supposedly uplifting legend, based on a true story, of a set of young rebels early in eighteenth Century Kazakhstan who rose up against their oppressors. The country at that time was being overrun by a cruel and violent militaristic set of people called the Djongars, who were descendants of Genghis Khan and his Mongols. There are two main young male protagonists, Sertai and Taimas, who inevitably fall out as Sertai becomes more admired and takes over leadership; their kind-of-sister and lifelong friend Korlan, who is a scar-faced female warrior and very convincing she is too; and then Sertai falls for the beautiful young daughter, Zere, of a chief whom he offends, as being too conciliatory with their conquerors and not bold enough. The story is well told, though the flow is sometimes lost in translation. Mainly because the subtitles are out of synch, or use peculiar modern slang idioms, or during three long character farewell speeches leave just one (non-English) word up on screen for five minutes. Still, you get the gist. The story isn't new: Braveheart and all that - but this one has three things that make it standout (even apart from the fact that know nothing whatsoever about Kazakhstan's history so is always good to see a different part of the world through fresh eyes). The three things are:The steppe. Every so often the main characters wander down from the hills where they're hiding and say something like: oh, our steppe is so beautiful, we must get rid of the invaders. They almost literally swoon over the beauty of the steppe. Really extraordinary: rarely have I seen a place which gives the western city-born person such a sense of otherness - great empty wild bare barren looking place - kind of makes me feel the opposite. The clothes. Presume they are all true to time for the place and period. Great fur hats cascading down backs, women's hats like pagodas, intricate tooled soft leather jerkins and belts, Tartar-ish military uniforms look rather like samurai - completely unlike anything have seen before. The horse-riding. Never seen anything like it in the movies: these people ride like they were born in the saddle. And why walk when you can trot? And why trot when you can gallop hell for leather across endless miles of steppe? So gallop they do. A lot. So very enjoyable. Only downside: the end. And being told that it was another three hundred years before Kazakhstan finally got its freedom. Which would be .... hm, sometime in the 1990s.

rightwingisevil this film was beautifully done in every way. good cast, good directing, good screenplay, good camera, good editing, beautiful locations and settings, good costumes and, very good music. i've never thought a movie out of a small central Asia country would be this good. the script was so well crafted that allowed the young heroes and heroines to freely perform with their hearts and spirits. this is a film that once you've watched it would always stay with you, the beautiful prairie, the remote snowy mountains, the horses, the galloping. the first viewer was right, this film is indeed much better than 'nomad', the fight scenes were especially good too.

drkambarov One of greatest movies I've ever watched, along with Brave Heart and Gladiator...Movie is about real life of Kazakh nation in XIX century, about war between Jongars and Kazakhs, about a dozen of young fellas, who were brave and brilliant enough to go and fight against army which was very powerful, about decisiveness shown by Kazakhs, which about to lose the war against stronger Jongars, stronger in terms of army and technology, but no stronger in terms of spirit and belief. I think this movie will be especially interesting and exciting for those, who loves historic movies, movies about heroic people and actions. I wrote thousand times Nomad, because I believe it is really better and better many many times than Nomad, which has budget 3 times Myn Bala's budget, but was shot by non-professionals.