Stars: Burt Lancaster, Peter O'Toole, Simon Ward, Nigel Davenport, Michael Jayston, Peter Vaughan

Director: Douglas Hickox

Summary: The true account of the British Army under the command of General Lord Chelmsford, which took on the might of the Zulu forces in 1879.

ZULU DAWN depicts the bloody Battle of Isandhlwana, in which 30,000 Zulu warriors wiped out nearly 1,500 British troops stationed in Natal. The film focuses most sharply on the preparations for battle and the political situation in the region at that time. Taking Zulu chief Cetshwayo's defiant stance on tribal customs as a declaration of war, General Lord Chelmsford sends in hundreds of British troops in order to squash the spear-carrying Africans with superior fire power. The sheer number of Zulus, however, overwhelms the British infantry.

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Reviewed by: davybozal24-7
Posted on April 2, 2006 3:05 PM

This dramatic and true story recounts the breathtaking defeat of British forces at the hands of a 25,000 strong and relentlessly determined Zulu army in 1879 .
General Lord Chelmsford ( brilliantly portrayed by Peter O'Toole ) is
the man responsible for the fatal decision to split up the troops based on faulty information provided by the fake Zulu prisoners.
Colonel Durnford ( Burt Lancaster ) is the one armed hero who leads his men into battle with the Zulu forces that outnumber them 16 to 1 . Also stars Nigel Davenport as Sir Henry Bartle Frere who gives the ultimatum to Zulu Chiefs.

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Cy Endfield cowrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives--the British contingent was outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen.

The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached manner leads to one mistake after another and this is wryly illustrated in a moment when neither he nor his officers can be bothered to pronounce the name of the land they're in. That it's a beautiful land none the less is made clear by the superb cinematography, which drinks in the massive open spaces that shrink the British army to a line of red ants.

Splendidly stiff-upper-lipped support comes from a heroic Burt Lancaster and a fluffy, yet gruff, Bob Hoskins. Although the story is less focused and inevitably more diffuse than the concentrated events of Rorke's Drift that followed soon after, Zulu Dawnis an unflinchingly honest depiction of British Imperial diplomacy. --Paul Tonks

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	1979
Release Date:	January 5, 2004
Runtime:	112 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	D 093871
Keywords:	Action, English, Dawn, Zulu, Historical, Adventure
Genre:	Action/Adventure