General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

A Mongolian Tale

A Mongolian Tale (黑骏马, Hei jun ma) is a 1995 drama film directed by Xie Fei, adapted by the novelist Zhang Chengzhi from his own 1982 novella Black Steed. It follows Bayinbulag and Somiya, two young people raised as brother and sister by an adoptive grandmother on the Mongolian steppes, whose promised marriage collapses when Bayinbulag returns from years of study in the city to find Somiya pregnant by another man.¹ The film was a Chinese-Hong Kong co-production, spoken largely in Mongolian, and won director and music awards at the 1995 Montreal World Film Festival.²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	黑骏马 (Hei jun ma, "Black Steed"); also released in China as 爱在草原的天空²
Director and screenwriter	Xie Fei; screenplay by Zhang Chengzhi, adapted from his 1982 novella Black Steed¹
Lead cast	Tengger as the adult Bayinbulag, Naranhuar as Somiya, Dalarsurong as the grandmother³
Language and setting	Mongolian dialogue, filmed on the Mongolian steppes⁴
Runtime and year	103 minutes, 1995¹
Production	Beijing Youth Film Studio, China Film Co-Production Corporation, and Media Asia Films¹
Major awards	Best Director and Best Music/Artistic Contribution at the 1995 Montreal World Film Festival; Best Director at the 1996 Shanghai Film Critics Awards²

Spoilers

Plot

Bayinbulag, a boy whose mother has died, is sent to live with a foster grandmother, Nai Nai, a nomadic shepherd on the Mongolian steppes, where he grows up alongside her granddaughter Somiya.³ The three live in a yurt, and the grandmother's dearest wish is that the two young people eventually marry.¹

Just before Bayinbulag leaves for the city to train as a veterinarian, the two pledge to wed on his return.¹ Instead of the expected months, he stays away three years, also training as a musician, and gives no news for long stretches.¹^•⁵ When he returns to marry Somiya he finds she is pregnant by another man; he leaves in anger and heartbreak.¹

Twelve years later Bayinbulag, now a famous folk singer, returns to the grasslands and makes contact with Somiya again. She is married to an alcoholic husband, lives a harsh life, and is the mother of four boys and a girl.¹ In the reunion he learns what became of the grandmother and comes to a new understanding of the past before leaving the prairie once more.⁶

Production

Xie Fei began preparing the film in 1993. He had admired Zhang Chengzhi's novella since its 1982 publication and had recommended it to other directors, several of whom abandoned attempts to adapt it. While shooting Woman from the Lake of Scented Souls, the actress Sichengua (Sergelen) told him she loved the novel and would like a role, which encouraged him to proceed.⁷ Funding came from a Hong Kong investor who judged that an art-house release abroad would not necessarily lose money; Xie declined the investor's suggestion of a more sentimental love story with Hong Kong and Taiwan stars, insisting on preserving the original's ethnic-cultural content.⁷

Casting and language. Xie wanted the film to be "very Mongolian, very local," using Mongolian actors rather than performers from Beijing.⁸ He chose two Chinese Mongolians for the adult leads: Tengger, a pop star famous throughout China, and Naranhuar, who had played the title role in Xie's A Girl from Hunan and was summoned from London, where she had completed filmmaking studies.⁸ He decided to shoot in Outer Mongolia expressly so he could cast Dalarsurong, a 74-year-old actress whose stage and screen career reached back to the late 1930s, as the grandmother.⁸ Because most of the cast did not speak Chinese, Xie directed through interpreters.⁷

Tengger, a Mongolian-born pop singer and composer, also wrote the film's score, which critics described as plaintive and understated.³^•⁵ The theme song "Mongolian" (《蒙古人》) is performed by Tengger.² Cinematography was by Fu Jingsheng.¹

Themes and critical reception

Critics read the film as a story about the encounter between nomadic tradition and the modern world. The Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas compared it with Nikita Mikhalkov's 1992 Close to Eden, noting that the difference was one of perspective: Xie's film is told by an insider rather than an outsider, and suggests that true morality derives from nature while city life can inspire judgments that are abstract and cruel.³ Reviewers also singled out the photography of the grasslands and the dignified figure of the grandmother; the San Francisco Chronicle described the landscapes and moody skies of the Mongolian grasslands as having an epic grandeur of their own.⁴ The Deseret News noted the film's slow pacing but judged the emotional payoff worth it, and praised the three lead performances.⁵

On review aggregators the film has drawn limited but positive sampling: Rotten Tomatoes lists a Tomatometer of 100% based on 2 reviews, and IMDb users rate it 7.4 out of 10.⁹^•¹⁰ Its US theatrical gross was $11.7K.⁹

Release and awards

The film premiered in Hong Kong on 16 November 1995, screened at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1995, and opened in the United States on 2 April 1997, distributed by New Yorker Films.²^•³ Later theatrical releases followed in Australia (19 March 1998) and Malaysia (23 May 2002).²

Its recorded awards include:²

Montreal World Film Festival 1995: Best Director (Xie Fei) and Best Music/Artistic Contribution (Tengger).
6th Shanghai Film Critics Awards 1996: Best Director, and the film named among the Ten Best Films.
3rd Beijing Student Film Festival 1996: Special Jury Award.

Xie Fei, a longtime professor at the Beijing Film Academy whose students include Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, and Jia Zhangke, counts A Mongolian Tale among the works for which he is internationally known, alongside Black Snow (Silver Bear, 1990) and Woman from the Lake of Scented Souls (Golden Bear, 1993).¹¹ The film has since circulated in restored form at Chinese retrospective screenings, including a 2022 Xiamen University program of six restored Xie Fei films.¹²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films late 1990s › Released 1995 to 1998

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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