The Legend of Tomiris

The Legend of Tomiris tells the story of the Saka queen Tomiris, who is destined to become a warrior and eventually unite the steppe tribes under her rule. After surviving the killing of those close to her, she is taken in by a group of female fighters and grows into a skilled combatant. As queen, she faces the Persian king Cyrus the Great, whose army vastly outnumbers her own forces, and must rely on the courage of her warriors and a strategic plan to confront the invasion.

The film is a Kazakh production directed by Akan Satayev, who also produced it alongside Aliya Nazarbayeva, who co-wrote the screenplay with Timur Zhaksylykov. It followed Satayev's 2016 film Hacker and preceded his later features. Almira Tursyn plays Tomiris, with Adil Akhmetov as Argun, Yerkebulan Daiyrov as Harasp, Aizhan Lighg as Sardana, Azamat Satybaldy as Kavaz, and Ghassan Massoud as Cyrus. Made on a budget of about 7 million USD, the historical drama runs 156 minutes.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 6.3 out of 10 from roughly 44,000 votes, while on TMDB it has a rating of 6.9 out of 10 from about 183 votes. The much larger vote count on IMDb suggests the film reached a broad international audience.