simply my favourite film. A true story well told.
I wanted to clarify some points from recent reviwers which I hope help exlain some questions. Mainly from Geofbob.
The two Lts. Chard and Bromhead - were new to battle. The reason Chard performed so well may be largely due to the fact that he was an engineer who knew about building defences. The mealie bag wall they build in the film was vital in order to slow up the thousands of zulus.
The victory was not a sure thing because they had guns. The zulus had hundreds of guns capture that morning from the other 1700 British troops that had been killed by the zulus armed with spears.
As to where the Hawkins character went to ? In reality he legged it away from his mission before the battle - later submitting a bill for damages to the British government.
No explanation into the reasons for the battle. No bad thing as the true story of men against men is a worthy tail on its own and any explanation would be open to interpretation - read the history yourself!
One last point everyone enjoys the Men of Harlech scene. Whilst this is poetic license - a very similar incident happened in the Afghan war at the same time. A Btirish regiment cut off and fighting to the end, sang God Save The Queen just before the final Afghan attack - they survived - remember these were very different men from today, no political correctness here and possibly a lot more courage. 10/10
Oh, and by the way Colour Sgt Bourne - very much existed in real life. He was awared the DCM and lived until 1945, the last survivor of Rorkes Drift.
I wanted to clarify some points from recent reviwers which I hope help exlain some questions. Mainly from Geofbob.
The two Lts. Chard and Bromhead - were new to battle. The reason Chard performed so well may be largely due to the fact that he was an engineer who knew about building defences. The mealie bag wall they build in the film was vital in order to slow up the thousands of zulus.
The victory was not a sure thing because they had guns. The zulus had hundreds of guns capture that morning from the other 1700 British troops that had been killed by the zulus armed with spears.
As to where the Hawkins character went to ? In reality he legged it away from his mission before the battle - later submitting a bill for damages to the British government.
No explanation into the reasons for the battle. No bad thing as the true story of men against men is a worthy tail on its own and any explanation would be open to interpretation - read the history yourself!
One last point everyone enjoys the Men of Harlech scene. Whilst this is poetic license - a very similar incident happened in the Afghan war at the same time. A Btirish regiment cut off and fighting to the end, sang God Save The Queen just before the final Afghan attack - they survived - remember these were very different men from today, no political correctness here and possibly a lot more courage. 10/10
Oh, and by the way Colour Sgt Bourne - very much existed in real life. He was awared the DCM and lived until 1945, the last survivor of Rorkes Drift.