Zulu Dawn

It`s a solid enough re-telling of the story but most of the characters are quite bland or feel slightly manufactured-Bob Hoskins tries a bit too hard to step into the shoes of Colour Sergeant Bourne ,Burt Lancaster hails from a previously undiscovered part of Earth judging by his accent and Private Williams is just so damn annoying you can`t wait for the Zulu`s to crack him over the head with something.Peter `o Toole is suitably dignified and arrogant although the most interesting character by far is Noggs(Ronald Lacey)

Despite perhaps a bit too much of early tea and cricket the invasion finally kicks off with masses of British Infantry and Cavalry supported by Elmer Bernstein`s quite disappointing score.These images are impressive and bode quite well for the actual battle, which when it does take place makes full-use of hundreds of extras and looks fantastic.No C.G.I. here and it probably looks better for it.Well it does look fantastic and is undoubtedly the films` strong point but thanks to the cropped grainy uk dvd the image is disasterously ruined.This is one of the best examples of any film I`ve seen that uses the full widescreen ratio 2:35:1 to it`s optimum and it needs to be seen in that format.The French region 2 dvd(L`Ultime Attaque), which has English audio, does this superbly and is worth tracking down.Maybe we could have a uk release with the correct ratio please.

This is the fantastic prelude to the 1968 film "Zulu" where the leader of the british force's lord chelmsford moves on the zulu's land to disarm the zulu's tyrant of a leader, because the british know so little of the land they r in lord chelmsford makes a radical decision to split his forces based on false information given to him by zulu impie's. 1500 men r dispatched to Ulundi and the other unlucky 500 men r dispatched to Isandlwana where they meet there doom, it all comes down to a few stout british generals and 500 british soliders against a massive horde of 25,000 zulu's! This film has everything, the drama, the action and the thrills, a must have for any Zulu fan, this film also stars bob hoskins and peter o toole.