A true classic of British cinema

Rating: 10/10 (7 December 2016)

This epic adventure is one of the yardsticks of the action-cum-war film genre, offering intense excitement, bloody action, and furious violence and all within a PG certificate too. A perennial favourite of the British television stations, it tells the true story of a British detachment stranded at the outpost of Rorke's Drift in hostile enemy territory, facing an angry army of 4,000 Zulu warriors intent on killing all and sundry.
The main army has already been slaughtered (an event chronicled in 1979's fine prequel, ZULU DAWN), so it's down to our stiff-upper-lip British and Welsh heroes - including Michael Caine in his standout, star-making performance as a young, cocky officer, and Stanley Baker as the heroic older rank - to battle against the dreaded foe. The film builds slowly in the first hour, displaying some glorious African locations, before letting rip with full-scale battle and destruction come the second half. Courage, bravery, tragedy, and most of all determination is what this film is all about, and it's a hard one to top as well as a perennial favourite.