Rise of the Conqueror
There’s a point in “Rise of the Conqueror” where a Scottish character tells the main character of the story of William Wallace. Of course, being set in the 14th Century, none of the characters have seen “Braveheart,” but chances are, a good number of people watching Jacob Schwarz’s film likely have. Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winning epic has certainly fallen in esteem over the years, but such a reference to a character that the audience probably has heard of- even from the heavily-fictionalized Gibson film- is a choice, making it hard for us to not play compare/contrast with the films. Schwarz’s film largely succeeds in forging its own path, but the formula is crystal clear the entire way through.
The film picks up in the mid-late 14th Century. The Silk Road- a trade route from Asia to Europe, and going through persia and the middle east- is being torn apart by war. The descendents of Genghis Khan control the land, but through a series of betrayals, a new military giant is on the rise in Timur (Christian Mortensen). Born in the early 14th Century, he starts by serving as an advisor to Ilyas (Joshua Jo), but then finds himself as a force of his own. He is expecting a child with Aljai (Yulduz Rajabova), herself quite a mind for strategy, and the film becomes a three-sided war, not unlike Kurosawa’s “Ran,” which isn’t to say it’s on that level, but that it gives you a sense of the shape of the film.
That an American is making this film feels…a bit off. The screenplay by Schwarz, Mortensen and Matthew Greene is very much rooted in traditions of American epic cinema, and the formulas and cliches within. It’s a very solid movie, with a number of rousing action sequences. There is not a lot that is surprising in this film, however. “Rise of the Conqueror” doesn’t really feel illuminating on its subject and story, and just feels like it is using a story less familiar to American audiences to create a big, epic action yarn. There’s nothing wrong with that- “Braveheart” did the same thing- but the story doesn’t feel as in depth in its development to reach that level of craft. The characters, save for the Timur, are all surface level, the story doesn’t feel like it illuminates anything on this time period, outside of the title cards before and after the film, and that might have helped it go from being a “we’ve seen this sort of film before” offering to “this is a new story that belongs in the canon” in terms of historical epics. For fans of the genre, it’s worth a look, but I would not expect anything deeper than surface level.
