Zulu Dawn review – fine ensemble cast show arrogance that led to British imperial disaster

2026-03-12 - 07:12

Peter O’Toole, Burt Lancaster and Denholm Elliott are all present and correct for watchable return to colonial clash in South Africa This 1979 film is effectively the stolid prequel to the massively successful Zulu from 15 years earlier, the stiff-upper-lip bloodbath that showcased vivid performances from Stanley Baker and Michael Caine. That was about the battle of Rorke’s Drift between the British army and the Zulus; Zulu Dawn is about the disastrous rout that preceded it: the battle of Isandlwana. The combat scenes are impressively staged, but almost the entire film seems like a second-unit director’s sequence, the battle itself is one very extended, classy B-roll with none of the internal drama, confrontation and light and shade that had made Zulu so potent. Zulu Dawn was received with hardly more than a shrug at the time, though it inspired a bizarre urban myth that there was a scene showing a British soldier gruesomely killed with three spears to the neck, one after the other – supposedly greeted in cinemas all over the country with facetious shouts of “One hundred and eighty!” (Sadly there is no such scene.) Continue reading...