I don't usually write about films which I've never seen, but I'll make
an exception for a brand new film starring screen legend Charlton Heston as an Asian
warlord! (IMDB summary)
In late 1992, Heston traveled
to Russia and Central Asia to play a Mongol warlord named "Togrul" in
an independently financed historical epic about Genghis Khan.
Oscar nominee Ken Annakin, helmsman of "The Longest Day," was the
director. Although 160,000 meters of film were shot, the movie was never
completed, for various complicated reasons. In 2008 and 2009, a company called Madison Motion Pictures acquired the
rights to the production of the film and arranged to shoot some additional
scenes involving the conquest of China. Annakin then worked until
his
death, April 22, 2009, assembling the footage into a new film called: "Genghis Khan - The
Story of a Lifetime," with a powerful original score which incorporates Mongolian folk music elements.
You
can hear portions of Richard Horowitz's score on
the film's official site. The new project is scheduled to be released
soon in two different formats: a 6-hour mini-series and/or a
2-hour feature film.
The film's producer states, "35
years after John Wayne played Genghis Khan in The Conqueror,
which was actually
filmed in Utah and elsewhere in the western USA,
Oscar-nominated director Ken Annakin vowed to tell the
incredible story of the
world's greatest warrior in the scope it deserves, filmed where the events
really took place. This visionary idea has been nearly 20 years in the
making, and remains the only real Genghis Khan movie after all the
disappointing ethnic films: Chinese, Japanese,
Mongolian, etc."
How weird would it be if Charlton Heston got an Oscar nomination this
year, more than two years after his death? Unfortunately, one supposes that his work in Mongolian make-up might
possibly be just a hair less than Oscar-worthy. If Heston seems inappropriate, the rest of the cast
sounds nothing short of hilarious. Genghis is played by an American actor from Alabama, Richard Tyson. You
know him. Even if the name doesn't ring a bell, you would recognize him
instantly. You may remember him as the out-of-control cop who thinks
Ben Stiller is a serial killer in There's Something About Mary, or as the
hunky shirtless carnival guy in Two Moon Junction, or from fifty other
projects in which he either played a minor character or appeared in a
minor movie. He recently played the lead in Stripper
Academy, a 2007 film which is rated 2.3 at IMDb. I watched that film. It
seems to have been filmed on a home camcorder, and ... er ... let's just
say they couldn't fit re-takes into the shooting schedule. Well,
technically, I guess nobody could have flubbed a line, since they didn't
seem to have a script to begin with. Yeah, that guy. He plays Genghis Khan; Khan the Terrible; Scourge of
Eurasia, Mobile, and parts of Selma. To be fair, Tyson is actually a competent
and highly physical actor, and would
almost certainly have to play Genghis Khan better than John Wayne did in
The Conqueror.
Julia Nickson, Tricky Dick's older daughter, was the female love
interest. OK, I'm fuckin' witcha! Julia was never the First Daughter, but she
was married to either Starsky or Hutch, whichever was the blond, laid-back
one. Her name back then was Julia Nickson-Soul, and they had a little
mini-Starsky or mini-Hutch named China Soul. The first name probably
reflects Julia's maternal heritage. Her Chinese mom did contribute to
Julia's distinctly Asian appearance,
which makes her look a lot more appropriate for the Khan film than either Heston
or Tyson.
But wait. I'm not finished. Khan's mortal enemy, the Emperor, is played
by ... (wait for it) ... Mister Myagi!
Ya gots ta love it.
I am intrigued!
