my favourite film. Great cast great screenplay great cinematography. The film had many factual inaccuracies but who cares. Stanley Baker's finest moment in my opinion. and no CGI.
Would make my all time top 10 despite the liberal nod to the actual facts...Henry Hook's descendants should have sued
There was an urban myth that his descendants walked out of the film premiere during the showing. They didn't. I too found it strange why they portrayed Hook as the polar opposite of what he was like as a soldier and as a gentleman.
If you want the real actual facts on Rourke's Drift or Isandlwana i recommend looking up an material on the subject by author Ian Knight. My favourite being Day of the dark moon.
Another myth is Rourkes drift was elevated and VC's handed out to distract the fact that a fully equiped modern British Army was destroyed by a native force at Islandwana using only skin shields and short spears ..Or maybe not a myth.. ..
Great film is Zulu. I also like the fact that we dont see any mutilated bodies, people with their guts hanging out, or their brains on their shields or redcoats. Nice, sanitised boys own story. Great cinematography though, great soundtrack and an inspiring (if somewhat inaccurate) story. Just a good film!
I think it was the Martini-Henry rifle at Rourkes Drift but the sheer overwhelming numbers at Islandhwana that helped both sides at each event
Since it was the 210th anniversary of the battle yesterday I encourage people to watch Waterloo. The acting is a bit off but compared to modern CGI fests it truly is "epic".
Another great film with no cgi. The 'choreography' of the battle scenes is excellent. I believe most of the extras used as troops were Russians (although I may be wrong)
At Islandwana the Zulu force was around 20k and faced an Army of around 1800. The Martini Henry rifle in trained hands could fire 10 to 12 rounds per minute and they had about 1400 of em. With a top range of 1000yrds the first volley could have been towards 16k shots in the 1st minute but the Zulu cleverly attacked by surprise from the front and sides simultaneously and didn't allow the British to form ranks. At Rourkes drift the British were ready...
