Nomad: The Warrior

Released By: The Weinstein Company
Released On: 1/18/2010
Director: Sergey Bodrov, Ivan Passer
Cast: Kuno Becker, Jason Scott Lee, Jay Hernandez

The Film:

The cover art for the blu-ray of Nomad: The Warrior looks like a blatant rip-off of the Sparta-rific film, 300. Why, thought I, would a company need to so obviously mimic the art for another release, unless the film is not good? The second warning sign was the number of governmental agencies listed in the credits for the film, and the rumour that the film making was presided over by various officials from Kazakh Ministries (read 1984). What were they preventing from being shown, and how would it affect the film overall?

Nomad: The Warrior has a lot going for it. The setting is Kazakhstan in the 18th century, a country inhabited by a nomadic people split into tribes, who have their lives routinely disrupted by attacks from the nearby Jungars. Fortunately for them, a prophecy has been told that a descendent of the great Genghis Khan will reunite the tribes, and lead the Kazakhs to victory against the Jungars. Oraz (Jason Scott Lee), is said to have some psychic abilities when it comes to this prophecy, and is sought out by Galdan, the leader of the Jungars. After stating that he believes the prophecy to be true, Oraz proves his intuition by picking the best war horse out of a bunch of horses for Galdan. He is then released to go about his business of selecting a youth from each of the tribes, to train as the potential warrior that will fulfill the prophecy.

Not overly adept at following period pieces, I found this to be the first head-scratcher, and went back to revisit the scene. It does appear that Oraz was only summoned to prove to the Jungars that the prophecy existed, to pick a horse for Galdan to prove the prophecy, and then released to help fulfill the prophecy. It sounds confusing. And it is. But this is just the first in a number of missteps and strange decisions that were made in the telling of the story.

Galdan, obviously worried that his authority will be overthrown by this “Chosen One”, sends out his troops to kill off potential candidates. When they happen on a caravan containing the newly born son of the Sultan, their plans of killing the child are thwarted by Oraz, who somehow whisks the child off to safety. Having rescued the child from imminent death, the Sultan is grateful enough to grant permission for Oraz to train the child in the ways of the warrior. A good chunk of the rest of the movie is the raising and training of Mansur (Kuno Becker), who is based on real-life warrior Ablai Khan.

Unfortunately, it is here that Nomad seems to lose focus altogether. In the course of the training, Mansur grows very close with his brother-in-combat, Erali (Jay Hernandez), which lends itself to trouble when Erali falls for Gaukhar, who of course is in love with Mansur. In what I can only describe as a huge blart of cliché, these events lead to one giant mess in the middle of the picture that it doesn't manage to pull itself out of. The clichés may have been actual historical events, but I'm guessing not.

Nomad: The Warrior is not a bad film. It's not a good film. It maintains its mediocrity through a number of mediocre writing, casting, and direction decisions. The dialogue is not laughable, nor is it thought-provoking or insightful. It has been mentioned in other reviews that a large amount of time goes by but some characters do not age at all, a detail not missed by most amateur theatrical productions. The special effects go from decent to pointless to the amazingly bad in minutes…consistency is not key. The title of the movie is representative of the Kazakh tribesmen as nomadic, yet they spend most of the battle scenes in well-established cities with “ancient tunnels” underneath. To be certain, the change in Director and Cinematographer during the filming could not have helped, and if effort is to be counted for anything, the framing and cinematography looks fantastic; but unfortunately, the end impression is that Nomad is too much potential in the hands of amateurs.

Video/Audio/Extras

Nomad is presented in 2.35:1 on this bluray, and the shots of the countryside are beautiful. There's a good representation of colours, some nice grain, and a great level of detail. The audio tracks are a lossless DTS 5.1 track in English, or a compressed Kazakh 5.1 Dolby Digital track. Sound is consistent with good dialogue and separation, and is by reports an upgrade over the DVD audio tracks. There are also English subtitles. However, supplemental features which may have explained the filming process and some of the decisions are absent...this disc is barebones.

The Final Word:

Nomad: The Warrior is a beautiful looking film, but not one that I would be inclined to revisit.