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DVD Zulu
"Sentries have come in from the hill, sir.... They report Zulus to the southeast. Thousands of them." One of the best pure action movies ever made, this rousing adventure recounts the true story of a small 18th-century regiment of British troops (including a very blue-blooded turn by a young Michael Caine) endlessly besieged by an seemingly unceasing number of fierce attackers. Although the basic premise has since been executed with more technical skill and panache (most notably by Aliens and Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans), it's unlikely that anything will ever top the utter spectacle and, above all, sheer unbelievable size of the combat scenes that almost wholly comprise the last half of this film. A gloriously exhilarating essential for anyone looking to get lost in the heat of cinematic battle, topped off with a healthy dose of gallows humor. Not to be missed. Richard Burton voiced the stirring narration. Zulu was followed by a slightly dry but still recommended prequel, Zulu Dawn. --Andrew Wright
Over time, there have been a number of cheap knockoff DVD versions of this classic film. I can only think that some of the reviews read on this page refer to those knockoffs, most of which are pretty poor. However, the official MGM DVD release sold here is a superb transfer. The original print is in great shape with no scratches that I could see. The colors on the transfer are bright and true to life, the red tunics particularly well rendered with no bleeding. It is crystal clear and wide, wide screen best viewed on a wide-screen monitor. As for the film, it was certainly one of my favorites as a youngster when it first came out, and I still need to see it at least once a year, but it does have the pace of an older film with a bit too many histrionics to stand up well today(as if the sergeant and his men would have the time to stand around spouting verses with the Zulu hordes just over the horizon). But that said, visually it's a sumptuous film. If you've never seen it, it is well worth a visit. If you've seen it before, it's a great transfer and you can always fast-forward through the over-dramatic bits ("The Lord sayeth you shalt not kill...!). I think my favorite line is by the above-mentioned sergeant while reading off the company roster: "Say 'Sir'... officer on parade.)
not perfect
First off Zulu is a great film. The cinematography is great, the acting is terrific, and, apart from some of the characters, is supposedly historically accurate. There are two main problems, both are understandable, that degrade the movie.
First off the film gives almost, there is a wedding at the beginning but that's it, no in-depth information about the Zulu themselves. They are portrayed neither as oppressed natives seeking just revenge nor as savages but simply as targets to be killed.
The other problem is that the battle is far to clean. The British uniforms stay virtually spotless throughout the fighting and there is very little blood seen. Neither the British nor the Zulu seem physically damaged either immediately or in the aftermath of the battle.
A neglected and many times forgotten gem movie!
Michael Caine became a true star with this tragic incident in which the Zulu warriors committed a massacre in 1879 on a British mission, The battle sequence is breathtaking and the cast was simply formidable. Based on a real life fact.
A grandly entertaining, old-fashioned adventure based on the Rudyard Kipling short story, The Man Who Would Be King is the kind of rousing epic about which people said, even in 1975, "Wow! They don't make 'em like that anymore!" When director John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen) first started trying to make the film, with Gable and Bogart, the project was derailed by the latter's death. It was a few decades before Huston was able to finally realize his dream movie--and with an unimprovable cast. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are, respectively, Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, a pair of lovably roguish British soldiers who set out to make their fortunes by conning the priests of remote Kafiristan into making... More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Huston DVD Release Date: Released the 19 November 1997 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Set in the expanse of the Sudan desert in the midst of holy war, Khartoum (1966) plays like an attempt to work the Lawrence of Arabia magic on the (mostly) true story of eccentric British general Charles "Chinese" Gordon in 1884 North Africa. The magnificent opening desert battle suggests David Lean's epic sweep, at least until the film settles into a more modest story of political games, military standoffs, and a battle of wits and wiles between two fierce leaders. Charlton Heston plays the wily Christian soldier as cocky, unconventional maverick, and Laurence Olivier (behind heavy make-up and a thick black beard) is almost as good as his cagey nemesis the Mahdi, the Islamic holy warrior on a mission of annihilation. More talk than spectacle, the film falls short of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Laurence Olivier Director(s): Eliot Elisofon - Basil Dearden DVD Release Date: Released the 07 May 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Cy Endfield co-wrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn 15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives, with the British contingent outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen. The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached manner leads to one mistake after another, and this is... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Douglas Hickox DVD Release Date: Released the 27 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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If you are a fan of the Zulu and Zulu Dawn movies, this is a DVD that you should own. Mind you, it is a documentary feature, but it is extremely well done. History buffs in general should love it. The production values are outstanding, the narration by John Hurt is excellent, and there are commentaries by Ian Knight, surely, for we Americans, the leading expert and writer on the Zulu Wars. The great majority of the trio of features consist of live action reproduction, brialliantly acted, and filmed on location in South Africa. I hesitated before buying this, as I had never caught it on the Learning or History channels, there were no extant reviews, and the packaging did not initially inspire confidence. However, my hunch paid off, and this outstanding little gem is worth every penny. More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 25 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Tony Richardson's film about the colossal Crimean War blunder combines his sociopolitical anger with the splendors of a David Lean epic for a fascinating artifact of that boiling-point protest year, 1968. Like America's contemporaneous Vietnam War, Britain's mid-19th-century conflict with Russia in defense of Turkey made less sense the deeper they sank into it; John Gielgud's Lord Raglan keeps referring absentmindedly to the enemy as "the French"! Aside from a peripheral romantic triangle involving apparently the single sane officer in Her Majesty's army (David Hemmings), his friend (Mark Burns), and the friend's wife (Vanessa Redgrave--Mrs. Richardson), the film is really about the profoundly jingoistic Victorian imagination; transitional animation sequences by Richard Williams seem to... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Tony Richardson DVD Release Date: Released the 07 May 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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