This is a great movie, made in 1963 I think it was way ahead of it’s time.
Based on a true battle in 1879 (and I have read several books that indicate that the movie is quite accurate) this movie is something that anyone interested in how well-trained soldiers react when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds should see.
It really is a good “period piece”, I think.
Anyway, the depiction of the Zulu warriors is magnificent.
During the course of the film, the Zulu warriors sing and chant (and it really is remarkable).
My question is, and it could be a “toughie”, is can anyone translate what the Zulu warriors are saying?
There’s a good article on the movie (and the source battles) on Wiki… while it’s probably more accurate than most historical films, it took great liberties with the moral characters of the individual characters – turning a decorated hero into a coward, etc. – while retaining their real-life names. (I hate it when filmmakers and writers do that; if you want to dramatize or take license, use entirely fabricated characters and names.) Also, the number of Zulu extras, at around 2,000, was only a tenth of the actual forces deployed in that battle. (Imagine the spectacle that would have been the full mismatch!) And of course they couldn’t help but get a few of the nitty-gritty military details wrong, like using the wrong issue of Martini-Enfield rifles or the wrong sound effects, or actors bungling the recoil, etc. But I’m willing to cut them some slack on that sort of thing.
I think it’s not a bad film.
However, and although I like him, I think Michael Caine is a bit of a distraction in this movie - for some reason, I keep expecting him to exclaim “You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
I’m not certain where you get your figures from at 20,000 Zulus being deployed- all the sources I know suggest around 4,000 at Rorke’s Drift. There is a good compariosn of the historical accurcy of the film here.
In his autobiography he explains that this was his “breakout” film. His first real part and he said he was very intimidated by it because of a number of factors, first time being on location, and the like, but the thing that reall bothered him was he was playing a “toff” and he was very unfamiliar with that type of individual.
Back to the OP, I have the movie on DVD and love it. I’ve always found the Zulu chants chillingly haunting. I can only imagine what it would have been like to have been a British soldier hearing 4,000 of the most fearsome warriors on the planet singing about how they were going to kill you.
The movie was very accurate, for the most part. They did take a few liberties. Hook was apparently nowhere near the rogue he is depicted to be, and his decendants complained about it. He was not shown as being a coward. Chard & Bromhead were well played characters, although Chard is said to have damned Bromhead with faint praise. He still recieved the VC. Also, Bromhead did not make as much of a protest that they should leave the drift as is implied.
Technical things I know about: Almost all the real characters had large beard & mustaches, the ammo boxes when opened showed loose bullets rather than the packets they actually came in (they got this right in the prequel Zulu Dawn).
The Africans who ran off before the battle were actually from a tribe that were rivals to the Zulu to this day. When they run off, they ran because the Zulus were going to be arriving soon! Once they were off camera they apparently kept going.
There’s a discredited theory that Oliver Cromwell chose red for the color of British uniforms to prevent soldiers from panic at the sight of their comrades drenched in blood. Discredited because he didn’t also choose brown for their trousers.
Apropos of nothing, I recall Michael Caine saying that the reason he spent the whole movie walking around with his hands behind his back is because he didn’t know what to do with them.
Zulu was a great flick-it was Michael’Caine’s firts big role-ironically, cast as an upper-class officer! that insane Sedish missionary was a hoot-sort of like a misplaced captain Ahab! What was the point of the British standing and fighting? was retreat not an option (the Zulus would have caught them and massacred them on the open plains)? The Zulus were very disciplined-had they been ordered to, they would have fought to the last man.
No, it was a conscious decision on Caine’s part to give his character an air of authority. A studio head saw his performance and complained that he didn’t know what to do with his hands.