This film is highly recommended for those with an interest in the Mongols, Scythians, Amazons and Huns, and other horse peoples, as well as tribalism and the relationships between young warriors and the older men that make decisions in traditional societies.

The English subtitles are obscured behind what I think are Vietnamese subtitles. The story is a pretty straight ahead action yarn that can be enjoyed regardless of this problem. The mounted combat is well done and a variety of traditional weapons are depicted. There is actually a realistic female warrior figure who more accurately approximates the role of Amazon women in warfare and steppe life than any of the fanciful depictions in western media.

The best executed aspect of the story is the tension between old settled men and young warriors who wish to overcome their oppressors. After the sons of one elder return to him having slaughtered a party of the overlords’ men, he shows disapproval. The lead youth looks at him and says that he should be advising them, not reproaching them, and he complies.

In our cozy rotten civilization we assume that older men of power keep ruling until replaced by middle aged men, and forget that in more traditional societies, that were not so leveraged with the weight of accumulated material, that the older men would sometimes be put into their place; not in a dismissive way, but via a demand for counsel from the younger men. This type of healthy interaction between men across age ranges is largely lost with modernity and is only retained in vestigial form among athletes and fighting men. The conduct of modern soldiers in enemy contact often consist of a reshuffling of the official hierarchy to a more functional one without a destruction of the hierarchy or the bonds between the men within it.

Check out the facility of the axe in mounted combat. Also note that the heroes are Islamic, facing a situation similar to what the Afghans have so often dealt with.