The Hoard (2012)

This movie came form one of those mystery DVD packs I mentioned earlier. The cover art shows images of a Mongol hoard, so imagine my surprise when this turned out to be a Christian movie, kind of, a Christian move with some side boob. The story of the Orthodox Saint Alexius, a 14th Century Metropolitan (Bishop) of Moscow. Alexius restored the sight of the mother of the then reigning Kahn, or at least tradition says he did, this movie doesn't seem overly concerned with facts. Still its a story I did not know, and the film is decently enough acted and certainly well budgeted. Life under Mongol dominance is something I don't think I've ever seen depicted in film before, I haven't seen The Conqueror though I suppose that would have be on my B-movie bucket list. This was really an interesting movie, very different, not that straight forward, the eventual "miracle" is handled in a extremely subtitle manner, off screen even, and it took me a bit to figure out what had happened, at first this annoyed me, but in retrospect there is something to be said for a vaguer, round about presentation. A good amount of time is spent with the Kahn and his inner circle, I don't think you even get to Alexius until at least 20 minutes in. This Russian film was refreshingly different. ***