Authentic action

Rating: Null/10 (26 July 1999)

Two brief comments:
Nigel Green, as the Colour Sgt., must have been an Army veteran or else he took the time to find a bayonet coach, because his bayonet fighting is perfect. His thrusts and parries were by the book. It illustrates one reason the British defended their position with success. You pit a soldier trained in bayonet drill against an untrained fighter with a spear, and the man with the empty rifle with a knife stuck on the front will always win.
The same theme applies to the other reason those British soldiers were able to stand their ground. They were trained and disciplined in the efficient use of their rifles. Even with those old single-shot rifles, their aiming, firing and reloading drills worked to bring overwhelming massed fire to bear. (And the movie's depiction of this is spectacularly clear.) Twice the number of armed civilians would have been wiped out by the Zulus in the first stages of that battle.