In the realm of Kublai Khan

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Movie
German title In the realm of Kublai Khan
Original title Marco Polo fabuleuse adventure
Country of production France , Italy , Yugoslavia
original language English
Publishing year 1965
length 117 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Denys de La Patellière
Noël Howard (anonymous)
Raoul J. Lévy (anonymous)
script Denys de la Patellière
Raoul J. Lévy
Jacques Rémy
Jean-Paul Rappeneau
Noël Howard
Jean Anouilh (dialogues)
Ted Allan
production Raoul J. Lévy
music Georges Garvarentz
camera Armand Thirard
Claude Renoir (anonymous)
cut Noëlle Balenci
Jacqueline Thiédot
Albert Jurgenson ( anonymous )
occupation

In the Kingdom of Kublai Khan (alternative title Marco Polo's Adventure ) is an internationally produced historical film from 1964 about the trip to China by the Venetian Marco Polo with Horst Buchholz in the lead role.

action

The story is about the expedition of the young Marco Polo, which began in 1271. The father and uncle of the young Venetian student Marco bring a message from Kublai Khan to the Pope in Rome from a trip around the world . In it the powerful Mongol ruler asks for worthy representatives of Western culture to be sent to his court. The young, adventurous Marco is supposed to lead the expedition to the Far East, accompanied by his father, his uncle and two high spiritual representatives of the Pope.

The extremely arduous and time-consuming journey takes the group to Jerusalem and Syria , later to the Gobi Desert and the endless expanses of the Mongolian steppe. The travelers finally advance across the Himalayas to the heart of China . Marco faces countless dangers and challenges: there is the old man in the mountains, into whose hands he falls and who tortures his companion to death. The clever and kind Emir Alla Hou frees him from his dungeon. Later, Marco has a short but stormy romance with an exotic, wild girl with a whip who rescues him from a threatening situation and shows him the right way. He loses sight of his friends after his father and uncle have been kidnapped and is ambushed by hired henchmen of the Mongol rebel Prince Nayam, the renegade and xenophobic son of Kublai Khan, whom Marco barely escapes. Nayam's goal is to spark a great armed conflict between East and West. Marco struggles through the desert with great difficulty. He is found half-dead by monks on the Chinese border. They take him with them.

In their Buddhist monastery, Marco Polo meets the beautiful Princess Gogatine. She also wants to travel to Kublai Khan, her future husband, and joins the Venetian. On the arduous journey there with a junk , they both fall in love. Finally you reach the court of the mighty Mongol ruler, where Marco Polo is the first to be imprisoned. But Gogatine informs her future husband of Marco Polo's arrival. He is very open to strangers and turns out to be a kind of enlightened, jovial despot . Marco's initial fears that he might have ended up with barbarians turn out to be false. Marco Polo becomes more open-minded with every day at court and learns to appreciate the Far Eastern achievements. But soon something is brewing against the "strangers". Because the Khan has powerful opponents who want to push the Europeans and their expanding influence out as quickly as possible - above all his own son. Prince Nayam puts everything on one card and tries to overthrow his father with his own cavalry army. It fails and Nayam dies in Kublai's arms.

background

In the kingdom of Kublai Khan is a French-Yugoslav-Italian co-production in collaboration with production companies in Egypt (Mounir Rafla) and Afghanistan (Italaf). The lavishly designed film, with numerous international stars, was made in December 1963 in the outdoor locations of Titograd , Dubrovnik , Alexandria and Nepal . The studio recordings were shot in Belgrade .

Shooting of the previous project under the French title L'échiquier de dieu began as early as 1962, but the shooting was stopped early due to unsecured funding. Alain Delon (as Marco Polo) and the colored American Dorothy Dandridge were cast in this unfinished production . At that time it was directed by Christian-Jaque .

In the kingdom of Kublai Khan it cost around 2.5 million US dollars and was therefore quite inexpensive (due to the inexpensive Yugoslav studios). The Yugoslav state company Avala contributed around one million dollars of this amount, although producer Raoul J. Lévy Avala still owed 200,000 dollars for the production of the first (canceled) film version from 1962. A weighty reason for the low total costs despite an enormous star cast was Lévy's contractual skill. With the exception of Buchholz, who was under contract for a total of five months, Lévy only paid daily fees. Then he had the scenes with the world stars filmed as quickly as possible. So was Elsa Martinelli 14 days of shooting, Anthony Quinn to ten days, Robert Hossein to one week and Orson Welles in only four days.

The film was first shown in France on August 6, 1965. The German premiere took place on October 29, 1965. TV viewers in Germany could see the film for the first time on December 9, 1972 on ARD .

The buildings in In the Kingdom of Kublai Khan were designed by Jacques Saulnier .

An abundance of screenwriters, some of whom remained unnamed, were involved in the manuscript, as changes were constantly being made. While the early film versions saw Marco Polo's journey in the foreground of the story, life at the court of Kublai Khan soon began to gain in importance. Finally, some of the leading actors took up pen and wrote their own dialogues, as Polo actor Horst Buchholz reported in an interview: “ Orson Welles gave the impetus. He rewrote his dialogues, which were too theatrical for him, suitable for film. Then came Anthony Quinn , who played Kublai Khan. He brought his house author Ted Allan with him. The two rewrote the entire complex of China. I think it is from them that the main depth of the story comes from. Quinn had what I believe was a good idea to suggest a historical parallel, namely, seen from then, a parallel to the future. He suggested that Kublai Khan should include the recipe for gunpowder in his reply to Pope Marco Polo, because he firmly believed that a balance of terror would most surely prevent war between East and West. "

Reviews

In the lexicon of the international film you can read: “A picture book film with currently formulated editorials about peace and coexistence.” In the online presence of Cinema it says briefly: “Naive epic with a huge cast of stars”.

The Protestant film observer came to the following conclusion: “A broad and complex adventure film [...]. The selection and connection of the episodes is not always satisfactory; dramaturgical weaknesses reduce the tension. Suitable for entertainment from 12. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. See Filmdienst.de and Spiegel.de .
  2. Buchholz interview printed in the Ringpress press booklet on In the Empire of Kublai Khan , o. P.
  3. Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 4, Reinbek near Hamburg 1987, p. 1767.
  4. In the kingdom of Kublai Khan on cinema.de
  5. Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 448/1965, p. 785.