With the imposing hills of Africa as its backdrop, Zulu truly immerses its audience. The realities of war are not shied away from, combining powerfully with an honest portrayal of the warriors of both armies. Cy Endfield's direction reflects internally on the nature of warfare and rises above schlocky antics, proving this film a true classic.

Many find it incongruous that Bromhead, an infantry officer in charge of a company of trained infantrymen, should hand over command of the position to Chard, an engineer.The reason for this was simple: Officer training at the time meant that engineer officers were given more extensive training in infantry tactics than were the well-healed sons who bought their commissions in the infantry. While the former spent much of their officer training honing their skills at infantry tactics (essential for one who would be required to build defences, roads, breastworks etc.), officers like Bromhead were sitting around their club, out hunting, or riding at the head of a parade or display on Hyde Park. Aside from being severely deaf and likely to be more of a danger to his own troops than to the enemy, Bromhead wisely sought and took the counsel of the more experienced (Chard was a veteran of several conflicts) and competent colleague. The absolutely correct decision in retrospect.

While Zulu is one of the most famous war movies to come out of the 1960s, and there are many reasons to watch it, if you don't usually like that genre, you probably won't like it. Similar to the plot of 55 Days at Peking, one of my all-time favorite war films, this movie follows a small group of British soldiers, grossly outnumbered by the enemy, who try to hold out as long as possible.Among the soldiers are Lieutenants Stanley Baker and Michael Caine, as well as Nigel Green, James Booth, Neil McCarthy, Ivor Emmanuel, Paul Daneman, and Glynn Edwards. While sometimes Stanley and Michael differ in their views of how to command the troops, Jack Hawkins rants and raves of the virtues of peace because he's a missionary. Jack's daughter Ulla Jacobsson tries to help among the wounded men, but since she's the only woman in the movie, sometimes she doesn't get treated very fairly.It wasn't Michael Caine's first movie—I saw him in a movie from 1957—it was his first major role, so the studio gave him a large "introducing" credit. If you're a Michael Caine fan, and you can tolerate a long, tedious war film, you might want to see him two years before his overnight stardom from Alfie. Even if you're not particularly a fan, but you want to see him in an extremely handsome role, he looks particularly dreamy in Zulu.All in all, I was pretty bored—when I wasn't drooling over Michael Caine, that is. The film wasn't nearly as interesting as other war flicks I've seen, and even Richard Burton's official sounding narration wasn't able to save it.

Zulu became so famous that the movie soon descended into parody including that Michael Caine impression: 'Oi, stop chucking those spears at me!' It is noticeable that Caine actually played a posh officer.Zulu is an epic directed by the American Cy Endfield. It is set in 1879 and depicts 4000 Zulu warriors heading for Rorkes Drift in Natal where a small supply post is defended by about 100 British soldiers.The first half of the film consists of showing the various characters from the British side. A barrack room lawyer shirking from battle (James Booth) a by the book pompous posh officer (Michael Caine) and an engineer (Stanley Baker) determined to be tactical and defend this outpost by setting up barricades and getting ready for battle.The second half is the relentless battle scenes as waves and waves of Zulus attack. Although it has to be said, the British soldiers although fewer in numbers have guns, the Zulus being in greater numbers mainly have spears and once they have been thrown, nothing much else.The film might look old fashioned but Stanley Baker was also one of the producers of the film. As a staunch socialist he was determined that this film would not be seen as some kind of jingoistic, colonial boys' own adventure but pay tribute to those mainly Welsh soldiers, eleven of them who were awarded the Victoria Cross. The film stills stands its ground.