L'Ultime Attaque

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.

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).

Not perfect, but awesome in its spectacle and casting, ZULU DAWN makes a fine companion piece to it's earlier sequel, ZULU.

DAWN starts fairly slowly with lots of lengthy contrasting scenes in Zululand and Natal, showing a big rift between the comfortable life of the British Colonials in Natal vs. the primitive barbarism of the Zulus. It's only inevitable that conflict later comes in one way or another and boy does it ever! The final battle scene consumes roughly the last 30 minutes of the movie and it's very exciting to see roughly 1200 British soldiers swiftly get overrun by a 30,000 strong army of Zulu warriors armed with spears. The red coats mow down wave after wave of Zulus but they just keep coming. The best scenes show the Zulu wave murdering wounded soldiers lying in their beds and then even running through the poor mess cooks! Then comes one of the best shots in any epic film (reminding me of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and BATTLE OF NERETVA) with one excellent long shot where the entire background shows the Zulus swarming through the British tents while in the foreground a Zulu stabs and British soldier to death.

The main disappointment here is that Peter O'Toole is a bit underused and in his rather 2-dimensional presentation of Lord Chelmsford as an uptight snob really doesn't have the complexity or larger than life impact that one would usually expect from him. The rest of the cast comes off great though, especially Denholm Elliot, Peter Vaughan, Bob Hoskins, and especially Simon Ward. The musical score is very good as well, though at times possibly a little distracting and oppressive.

Hats off to the cinematographer and location managers for this one - I believe ZULU DAWN was shot at the actual South African locations near the real battle (though Isandlwana hill was too modernized and built up to use for the film), so the authenticity of this film shall probably go unequaled into history. I heartily recommend this film to any fan of large-scale war and action films - just hang in there for the climax as it's one of the finest in all filmdom.

The events leading up to and culminating with the 1879 battle of Ishandlwana are depicted very well in this exciting film. Although made some 15 years after the 1964 flim "Zulu", this film is actually the "prequel" to the other and should be viewed first in order for a better understanding of these two events in the British invasion of Zululand. The cast contains too many splendid actors and performances to single any out. Some historical errors do creep in but, on the whole, the film conveys the look and feel of the real thing. Very much worth the price of admission.

As a long-time fan of the original "Zulu" I'm always surprised this film hasn't got the same reputation. True the story isn't as 'tight' as the Sixties classic (more scene-setting, more characters to deal with) but the production values are excellent, the photography beautiful and the climactic battle scenes brilliantly staged.