Four arduous years in the making, Ardak Amirkulov’s 1990 historical epic about the intrigue and turmoil preceding Genghis Khan’s systematic destruction of the lost East Asian civilization of Otrar is a one-of-a-kind experience. Amirkulov’s film, shot in sepia-toned black-and-white, is at once hallucinatory, visually resplendent, and ferociously energetic, packed with eye-catching (and gouging) detail and B-movie fervor, and traversing an endless variety of parched, epic landscapes and ornate palaces.