Zulu Dawn

This movie had the potential of being great - what with us going well over budget ($52mill) We had the stars - most being very professional but with two major flaws - with incompetents such as Douglas Hickox and Peter O'Toole (directly responsible for the over-budgeting) 2nd Unit Director, David Tomblin and Peter Mc Donald - 2n Unit film Director were largely responsible for saving the production - in many more ways than one.

Our skeleton crew had to re-shoot many scenes. It took a lot of serious brainstorming and communication with the amaZulu to be able to complete this very important depiction of one of many battlers that took place between the "natives" and the invading colonialist (Boer & British) armies.

The passion, pathos, emotion and pain of reliving this momentous battle had an immense effect on myself, especially as I was one of the isiZulu Interpretors and Liaison people - as well as one of the second assistants.

The scenery may well have been spectacular; but working in such close/intimate - trusting proximity with 6000 amaZulu warriors was an experience beyond all comprehension.

I still regard this movie to be a very valuable one - especially since the fall of the previous South African regime and highly recommend it.

In fact, a prequel to 'Zulu' (1964) directed by Cy Endfield who was also a major collaborator on ZD. As 'Zulu' is about the battle of O'rourke's drift, one of the most celebrated victories in British military history, ZD deals with one of the biggest defeats of the British army by an indigenous force. It happened just a few days before the events in 'Zulu'.

ZD is sheer heaven for history buffs : everything is recreated into the tiniest detail : the uniforms, entirely filmed on location in South-Africa Natal province , the famous Martini Henry rifles, even including some kind of prehistoric rocket launchers, so no cost or effort were spared to recreate the conditions of the battle.

The Brits are represented by the cream of English actorsgild : Peter O'Toole as the too self-confident general, Simon Ward as the green lieutenant, Bob Hoskins (just before his breakthrough role in "the Long Good Friday") as a hardasnails sergeant and Denholm Elliot as one of the ignorant troop commanders.

Also a large Boer party ( settlers mostly from Holland as 'Boer' is the Dutch word for farmer) took part in the battle, lead here by none other then Burt Lancaster ! In 1879 the Boers still sided with The British against the Zulus. Twenty years later, after having defeated the Zulus, the Brits and Boers turned against each other and became involved in a struggle for the diamond-rich Natal province. A very bloody three-year war followed, simply known as 'the Boer war', where the British army was nearly defeated by the much smaller number of unprofessional Boers soldiers.

Director Douglas Hickox ( Entertaining Mr Sloane, Sitting Target, Sky Devils,etc..)does an excellent job and turns in a classic-style, immaculate and spectacular epic. Sadly ZD was a big flop at the box-office and marked the end of the old-style colonial epics, up until the recent remake of 'The Four Feathers'.

It also marked the end of the career of director Hickox in feature-length movies and he was forced to work for TV, condemned to churning out superior 'schmalzy' series as 'Mistral's Daughter', 'Sins', etc...

But as historical epics go, they do not come any better than this. I rate it 8/10.

If you like this try also 'Khartoum' (1966).

An impressive recreation of the events leading up to and of the battle of Isandlwana. The cast quality was first class, but the film jumped about from British to Zulu camps and back again to much, and some more footage of the Zulu rulers and their decisions would have been nice.

As it is the film gave a fairly balanced account of both sides. The actual battle scenes were very impressive but given the area at Isandlwana were not as tightly shot as in Zulu nor as good, and thus the same atmosphere just wasn't there, with scenes jumping around, and you could not relate to the individual characters as much as in Zulu, as they were on and off screen to quickly.

The Zulu charge though was frightening, and you felt for the soldiers who had to meet it. In short, not as good as the original, and with some mistakes in the British weapons and some equipment, but a very good introduction to Zulu if you were to see both movies back to back.

ZULU DAWN lives in the shadow of ZULU . That's hardly surprising because ZULU is the much better film , however unlike the 1964 film DAWN does stick to historical accuracy . The British are portrayed rightly as being overconfident , arrogant and foppish and it's this hubristic attitude that has lost wars when a superpower looks down its nose at the fighting capabilities of a backward third world nation . The British almost repeated the same mistakes during the Boar war , and the French and Americans done it in south east Asia , and the red army did it in Afghanistan.

DAWN does chronicle in great depth the mistakes made at the battle of Isandlwana: Chelmsford split his forces , the army didn't reinforce the perimeter , they were spread too thinly , and the method of supplying ammo was totally flawed , but it's this that spoils the film , there is too much emphasis of what happened to cause this defeat . Despite having an all star cast ( Two of which won Oscars and a couple more who have been nominated ) there's little character focus and you care little for the people involved . The film would have worked much better if it concentrated on just Chelmsford and Bob Hoskins gruff Sgt Major instead of the many characters who drift in and out of the picture

ZULU DAWN isn't a complete waste of time though , despite the long wait the battle scenes are handled well ( But not as good as ZULU ) and like ZULU it shows that a lot of brave men died on both sides

Update March 2008 . Recent historical evidence suggests that ZULU DAWN is fairly inaccurate especially where mass ranks , or the lack of them are concerned . But still knowing what historians knew in 1979 it's still a serious attempt to portray the battle accurately at the time

Ostensibly a detailed retelling of the defeat of British forces at Isandlwana, and an attempt to duplicate the success of the earlier "Zulu" (about the battle at Roarke's Drift, a British "Alamo" situation that the British won). However, "Zulu" had a taut storyline and the tension never leaves until the end. "Zulu Dawn" is necessarily more diffuse, covering the folks at home (both in South Africa and Zululand) and the converging of battle forces and the division of the British between Lord Chelmsford's column and the men at Isandlwana. Through it all, stock military characters (the crusty cockney Sgt. with the caring heart, the Gomer Pyle recruit, the commanding officer who can't even pronounce the name of the camp, the far-sighted outsider who gives satiric barbs about everything (in this case, newspaperman Norris-Newman, played with wonderful acidity by Ronald Lacey), the military commander who thinks he's omnipotent, the jolly young chaps in the officers' mess . . .

A lot of fine actors (Nicholas Clay, Simon Ward, James Faulkner, Ronald Pickup, Donald Pickering, Michael Jayston) wind up without much to do other than lend their names to a prestigious cast headed by Peter O'Toole, Burt Lancaster, and John Mills. Nigel Davenport comes off well with a flamboyant Hamilton-Browne and Lancaster and O'Toole are always dependable. But there's no focus in the story and there's little sympathy for either the British or the Zulus, such as they were able to impart in "Zulu".

Also, the movie takes the easy route through Isandlwana. Instead of ascribing any of the blame for the defeat to Col. Durnford (who should be considered the commander at Isandlwana rather than Pullein), all the blame is accounted to the hubris of Lord Chelmsford (the chilling Peter O'Toole). Though Chelmsford gives terse reasons for, say, not laagering his wagons, his reasoning should not be dismissed as specious. And it's never clear (as the fact was) that Chelmsford's was the _major_ column and not the camp at Isandlwana.

The main cause for the British disaster is fairly clear in the movie, and that's the method of giving out bullets. Peter Vaughan gives a crafty performance as the quarrelsome quartermaster who demands that each bullet be accounted for at the head office. The niggardly way the bullets were dispersed to the men, who were holding the Zulu back until they ran out of ammunition on the front lines while crates of bullets were held back in the wagons, was the primary cause of the disaster. It would've been nice to have broken with tradition by laying some blame on Col. Durnford for dividing the force, though Lancaster's Durnford is never anything less than the hero of the movie.

Most viewers probably don't care about the facts of the disaster, but they will care that the feature itself is not compelling. Nevertheless, if one can sit through it, it makes a companion piece to "Zulu" that does set up the tense drama and excitement of that better movie.