The Mongolian Connection is a 2019 film directed by Drew Thomas.
Wade Dalton is an FBI agent who participates in a human trafficking sting in East Texas. He captures one Serik, a Kazakhian member of the Russian mafia. It turns out that the government of Mongolia wants to extradite Serik so that they can get him to turn state's evidence against a huge Russian crime syndicate operating out of Mongolia. A surprised Wade finds himself on a plane to Ulaanbaatar along with Serik and Khulan, a human trafficking victim and prostitute who, despite this, has also become Serik's girlfriend.
In UB they meet Detective Ganzorig, who is running the case against Arslan, the head of the Russian crime syndicate. Serik tells Ganzorig calmly that he won't testify, but they decide to take him to court anyway. To prevent the Russians from rescuing Serik, the police organize an elaborate operation in which they will escort a decoy to the courthouse, while placing Serik in an ordinary cab. The expected Russian attack on the convoy materializes, but when Serik watches his fellow gangsters murder Fake Serik instead of rescue him, he realizes that his bosses will never let him live. So Serik decides to help the good guys after all.
An International Coproduction of the United States and Mongolia.
Tropes:
- Buried Alive: A rebellious Mongolian worker says that there's no gold in the illegal mine shaft that Arslan and the Russians are forcing him to work in. So Arslan has him thrown in the mine shaft and, at gunpoint, forces the other laborers to fill in the shaft.
- Completely Unnecessary Translator: Serik uses Khulan to translate when Wade Dalton comes to his office with an offer. He's later revealed to speak perfect English, which irritates Wade.
- Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Khulan squints after flipping a light switch in her previously very dark apartment. This allows Tenzin, who was hiding in a corner, to jump out and grab her.
- Decoy Convoy: Ganzorig and the Mongolian cops, assuming that the Russians will attack them, organize a decoy convoy to the courthouse, while actually transporting Serik in an ordinary cab. Sure enough, the decoy convoy is assaulted, and the cop pretending to be Serik is killed.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Borgil, who was Fake Serik in the decoy operation, dies in Ganzorig's arms after the bad guys shoot him.
- Die Laughing: Tenzin and Serik really were friends, which is why Tenzin chortles with amusement as he bleeds out from a stab wound in the femoral artery.Tenzin: Look at the mess we made!
- Dinky Drivers: A rare full-sized example. Wade and Serik, who are running from gangsters that are trying to kill them, jump into a car. First problem: Wade realizes that the car is a Japanese-made car so the steering wheel is on the right side. Second problem: Serik, who got in the right-side seat that turned out to be the driver's seat, is handcuffed, because he's a criminal under arrest. Third problem: the car is a stick shift, and they don't have time to change seats due to the aforementioned murderous gangsters who are hot on their heels. So Wade and Serik go on a death-defying high-speed car chase through Ulaanbaatar, with Serik operating the steering wheel with his handcuffed hands, while yelling out gear changes to Wade, who operates the stick.
- Dirty Cop: Ganzorig is shocked to find out that his boss, the chief, is in league with the Mafiya. The chief shrugs his shoulders and says that basically, everyone does it.
- Dramatic Gun Cock: Serik dramatically works the action of a shotgun as he tells Wade that Wade needs to let him help fight the bad guys that are gathering outside the safe house.
- Eye Scream: Wade gets stabbed by a mook, but still wins a fight by jamming his thumb into the bad guy's eye.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Wade crashes a bottle of beer against a mook's skull during a fight; it barely slows the mook down.
- Headbutt of Love: Serik is a criminal and a murderer, but he has fallen in love with Khulan. This is demonstrated when Serik, who has just found out that Khulan is carrying his baby, does a headbutt of love with her after rescuing her from the Mafiya goons.
- Hidden Wire: Bad tech skills blow up a sting operation in the opening scene. Ganzorig has put a wire on a Mongolian man who works with the Mafiya. The man meets with Tenzin, another Mafiya man and, as it turns out, Serik's buddy. The transmitter is located in a rigged-up transistor radio. Unfortunately for the good guys the faulty transmitter starts broadcasting what Tenzin is saying rather than pop music off the radio. A bloody fiasco ensues in which the informant is killed and Tenzin escapes.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Wade, posing as a drug dealer, gains an audience with Serik and offers to sell him drugs. Khulan translates this. Serik, who smells a rat, tells her in Mongolian that as soon as Wade leaves they have to pack their stuff up and go. They never get the chance as the SWAT team bursts in moments later.
- Human Trafficking: What Serik is up to in Texas, smuggling in Mongolian women to work as prostitutes. It's a huge problem in Ulaanbaatar, with news reports of gangs snatching women off the street.
- The Mafiya: They are the ultimate Big Bad, running a syndicate in Ulaanbaatar that does stuff like drug running, human trafficking, and (a Mongolian specialty) illegal gold mining.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Serik was refusing to testify against the Mafiya. In fact, he had picked the lock on his handcuffs and escaped the taxi during the shootout. But when he sees the goon squad murder the man they thought was him, he goes back to the taxi and locks himself in. After that he agrees to testify in court.
- Not His Blood: Played straight. After the decoy operation goes sideways, Ganzorig's boss calls him out for a meeting. The chief sees Ganzorig's blood-spattered shirt and says "That's a lot of blood," and Ganzorig says "It's not mine."
- Punk in the Trunk: Wade's partner shows him the upper half of Chin, found in the trunk of a car. When Wade says "Where's the rest of him?", his partner clicks a key fob to open the trunk of a second car.
- Running Gag: Wade keeps getting irritated by getting into cars in Mongolia and finding out that the steering wheel is on the right side.note This is played for humor but it is also played for drama in a scene where he and a handcuffed Serik are fleeing from the Mafiya goons, and they get into the wrong seats in the car, forcing Serik to operate the steering wheel while calling out gearshift orders to Wade.
- Significant Background Event: Wade and Serik bust in and rescue Khulan from her Mafiya captors. The whole bloody fight is shown out of focus, as the camera keeps focus on Khulan in the foreground, quietly weeping.
- The Stinger: There are two. There's a scene in the middle of the credits where Ganzorig, who is apparently taking Wade out for some time in the country to recover, says that Mongolians aren't used to that sort of bloody mayhem. Wade says to never get used to it. Then there's one last scene after the credits are over, showing Wade, who went to sleep in Ganzorig's yurt, being woken up by a goat slurping on his fingers.
- Stock Scream: The Wilhelm Scream is heard when Serik wins a fight with a bad guy by throwing him out the window of a moving train.
- Tactful Translation: Khulan and Wade are talking in a nightclub when a drunk businessman, who recognizes Khulan from her work as a hooker, approaches her. The drunk guy, using a torrent of offensive language, belligerently asks what she's doing with "the foreigner", tells her that the white guy isn't her friend, and calls her a "silly bitch." Wade can't understand but he picks up on the tone and asks the bartender what the drunk guy said.Bartender: He says you are not her friend. And some other stuff.
- Take a Third Option: Before their big fight at the end, Tenzin says to his old friend Serik, "You've got two options. First, I kill you; second, I kill you." Serik says "I'll take the third option," and he does, winning the fight.
- Team Power Walk: The three heroes have a big one at the end when Wade, Ganzorig, and Serik walk into court, having suffered various injuries and all covered in blood, for Serik to testify. (The trial was already underway and per Mongolian law could not be delayed.)
