| Storm over Asia | |
|---|---|
_poster.jpg) |
|
Written by Osip Brik and Ivan Novokshonov, and starring Valéry Inkijinoffm, the film is also kniwn as “The Heir to Genghis Khan.”
In 1918 a young Monglian herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes after brawling with the trader.
In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, helping his fellowmates fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army.
He is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Still alive, he is restored to health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. Thrust into prominence, the trapper is placed in charge of puppet government. By the end, however, the “puppet” turns against his masters in fury.
The movie takes liberty with historical facts: The British were never in Mongolia, or ruling it, as shown on screen, whereas the Soviet Union was spreading influence by discrediting the unstable Bogd Khanate, whilst working to establish Mongolian Soviet puppet state.
The studio’s ideological goal seems to have been making sort of an anti-imperialist, pro-Soviet film, rather than a chronicle of a specific setting.
That said, anti-Bolshevik monarchist troops led by rogue “mad baron” Roman von Ungern-Sternberg did invade Mongolia, in October 1920, for territorial control.
Unlike such films as Eisenstein’s October 1917 or Battleship Potemkin, which are about revolutions in Russia, Storm over Asia depicts a distorted, fictionalised British occupation of Southeastern Siberia and Northern Tibet.
While the plot was fictional, some film footage, such as the Cham dance, was shot during actual ceremony at Tamchinsky datsan.
Cast
Valéry Inkijinoff — Bair, the Mongol (The Son) (as Valeri Inkishanov)
I. Dedintsev — The British Commandant
Aleksandr Chistyakov — The Russian Rebel Leader
Viktor Tsoppi — Henry Hughes, unscrupulous fur-buyer.
F. Ivanov — The Lama
V. Pro — British missionary, translates amulet
Boris Barnet — British soldier, pipe smoker
Karl Gurniak — British soldier
I. Inkizhinov — Bair’s Father
L. Belinskaya — The Commandant’s Wife
Anel Sudakevich — Commandant’s blonde daughter
Credts:
Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin
Written by O. Brik, I. Novokshonov
Cinematography Anatoli Golovnya
Release date: 1928
Running time: 125 minutes
