George Taylor A decent film, if not up to the quality of Zulu, the movie this precedes. The battle of Islandawhana where most of a British army was wiped out, even though they had better weapons, by a Zulu army. This shows the arrogance of Europeans in their disregard for Native armies. Decent, but really a bit dull in parts.

Prismark10 Zulu Dawn has some incredible photography with an epic feel it seems a lot of the plaudits for that should go to the second unit team rather than the director Douglas Hickox, who was more of a hack and unfortunately this epic was over his head and thus he delivered a less than engaging and loose film that also went over budget.The film recounts the defeat of the bellicose British forces intent on invading Zululand as the British forces are split and soon taken by surprise by the Zulus.The film has the usual cyphers from the arrogant, pompous nobility (Peter O'Toole), the experienced Sergeant Major type (Bob Hoskins), the more sensitive and noble officer (Simon Ward), the natural heroic leader of men (Burt Lancaster). There is some craftiness with Peter Vaughan as the jovial Quartermaster accounting for each bullet.There is a large cast and a larger cast of extras which makes you think what would the film had turned out if someone like Richard Attenborough had directed this film with a stronger script. This is a diffuse story, a lot of fine actors with little to do, and although the battle scenes are fine, you do wonder why the Zulus are shown as nothing more than warriors running with spears while some of the British soldiers are having a noble death.

mario_c Depicting what is claimed to be the worst defeat of the British colonial army against a native force (battle of Isandlwana), ZULU DAWN is a remarkable film that goes until the most little detail when portraying this battle and what preceded it (the British ultimatum against the Zulu king). It's in fact a very good production and the battle scenes are themselves very well represented. Before watching this film I didn't know about this battle, so it also worth for that, as watching this movie was almost as looking at the History channel (and to a world's history interested person like me - including political and military history – it was good finding this movie). As far as I learned the British ended up invading Zululand (in Anglo-Zulu war in 1879), but this defeat at the battle of Isandlwana against the Zulus was an infamous loss to them, mostly on their pride and typical arrogance

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- Zulu Dawn, 1979. This film tries to show the historic actions in Natal South Africa when war broke out between two 18th century kingdoms; Britian and Zululand.*Special Stars- Peter O'Toole, Burt Lancaster, John Mills.*Theme- Kingdoms have ambitions.*Trivia/location/goofs- Very early on camera acting role for Bob Hopkins as the cockney Color Sargent Major. Many of the production staffers on this film were also the same for the earlier feature film, ZULU that started Michael Caine's film career. Shot entirely in Africa. Goofs: the 'heavy' wooden boxes of provisions, once dropped into the river by native bearer strangely float away in the stream current getting away from the bearers.*Emotion- Not as easy to watch as it's predecessor, ZULU. This film is very slow and plodding with endless unnecessary scenes of troops and calvary on the march. The viewer find themselves fast-fowarding to the main cast's dialog scenes with the British officers or Zulu's for relief.