I was heavily reminded of the Chinese film “Hero” starring Jet Li. The action of the film is the confrontation - or collusion - between Hero and a set of assassins that allowed him to get close enough to an emperor (obviously meant to be Qin Shi Huangdi - the first Chinese emperor) to kill him. He then spares the emperor and sacrifices his own life to maintain the emperor’s control over the court in the name of the idea of “One Land” (the characters are shown over the last shot of the film) - a blatantly modern message of Chinese national unity.

I guess I’d argue that “Mongol”, “Hero”, and “The Alamo” are all of a type - nationalist myth films.

Do you reckon that they also wanted to make the most politically neutral movie they could so they could make a killing internationally?

My most aggressive plagiarizers (in the sense of seeming to have done it deliberately and have no sense they did anything wrong) have been female non-traditional students. I think it is because we get a lot of non-traditional female students who want to go into nursing because they hear there is money in it, but who have unrealistic expectations about the amount of effort it takes to do well.

The ones in the actual two-year degree programs are carefully screened because there are limited slots available, but those who are just getting a college-transfer degree so they can go on to one of the nearby four-year institutions are not. We are a community college, so we have open enrollment. If someone isn’t academically qualified (say about 35% of our admissions) they are tracked into developmental classes until they are.

The best step up and dig in, but many start doing what I assume they probably do in other areas of life - look for reasons why nothing is ever their fault and they shouldn’t have to do all of this work. Those are my plagiarizers.

Now, I should make clear I’m not counting mistakes here. Despite my efforts, basic college English is not a prerequisite for our history survey courses (I have had a battle just getting it as one for my history of Africa - which is a sophomore-level course by definition). Most of my students haven’t had a “freshman comp” course, and many are in developmental writing (another battle - and one I’m still losing). As a result, I’m teaching the basics along with my subject matter and so many of my students do not really understand what plagiarism is. Those people receive mercy and help. I’m referring to the folks who know better and do this deliberately.

Anyway, watching Mongol, I couldn’t help but think about that colonizing thing. Hollywood got in the way of Mongol being a better film. That and our postmodern revisionism that thinks it funny (or, worse, necessary) to suggest that Genghis Khan’s success is all because of a woman. (Oh, I hope that last sentence doesn’t get me in trouble!)