Zulu Zulu

Dwarfing the mightiest! Towering over the greatest!

In 1879, during the Zulu wars, man of the people Lt. John Chard (Stanley Baker) and snooty Lt Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine) are in charge of defending the isolated Natal outpost of Rorke's Drift from tribal hordes, holding out during an Alamo-like seige until they are overwhelmed, losing the battle, but going down in history as heroes. 150 soldiers defended a supply station against some 4000 Zulus, aided by the Martini-Henry rifle 'with some guts behind it. "At Rorke's Drift, eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded. Seven to the 2nd Battalion, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot, one to the Army Medical Department, one to the Royal Engineers, one to the Commissariat and Transport Department and one to the Natal Native Contingent.

Stanley Baker Jack Hawkins Ulla Jacobsson James Booth Michael Caine Nigel Green Paul Daneman Patrick Magee

MGM

drama foreign history war action

138 mins   More details at IMDb / TMDb

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  • Si Sharp

    Review by Si Sharp ★★★

    Never have so many died from such seemingly inconsequential wounding.

  • BLCAgnew

    Review by BLCAgnew ★★★★

    A fantastic war movie that hasn't aged much in decades. Just wish it were a tad less. . . well, it's pretty racist. Maybe inescapably so, but still. That said, the dueling singing, the final charge, MICHAEL CAINE. Great stuff.

  • Fish Knox

    Review by Fish Knox ★★★

    Zulu is, I'm sure, a great depiction of the battle it's based on. Unfortunately that isn't something I'm particularly interested in, so it didn't really do much for me.
    The first hour and a half could have been cut down a bit as not a lot seemed to happen. The battle scenes were good fun, though.

    Overall, I think the film was drawn out to be much longer than it needed to be.

  • Will Morgan

    Review by Will Morgan ★★★★½

    Featuring one of THE great battle sequences.

  • Jeremy Poulos

    Review by Jeremy Poulos ★★★

    "Remember the Alamo!"-I mean, "Rorke's Drift!" I would call this film a western. They swapped out the ethnic group and put red coats on the soldiers, but I bet they were cashing in on the success of the 60's westerns. The landscape even looks like the west and the beautiful photography is shot like a western. I think part of the purpose was to also show (exploit?) this Zulu culture, thus a 10-minute wedding party scene at the beginning and a lot of chants later on.

    I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters in this because they are all stuffy and dry and I really don't know that much about them. The whole movie takes place…

  • AHAB

    Review by AHAB ★★★★

    Apocalypse 1879... The Enemy Strikes Black.

    Yo! Bum Rush the Brits

  • FreonFilm

    Review by FreonFilm ★★★½

    Vackert fotograferad film och spänningen byggs upp på ett föredömligt sätt. En bra story, men det koloniala anslaget är problematiskt.

  • Antonomasia

    Review by Antonomasia ★★★★½ 3

    For Andy S' Michael Caine's 80th birthday list.

    Zulu was more fun to watch than I ever expected. (Though I cannot deny it's also a problematic film.) It helped that Quiz Kid Donnie Smith here had actually forgotten who won the battle of Rorke's Drift; I'd never formally studied that bit of history, but still... And I deliberately didn't look it up so I'd enjoy the film more.

    This was one of Caine's first starring roles - and an atypical one looking at the rest of his career, as he plays an upper-class pillar of the establishment, Lt. Gonville Bromhead. (On hearing his name, I started waiting to see what, if anything, would happen to his jacket, recalling the British…

  • COLPARKER

    Review by COLPARKER ★★★★½

    This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.