50th anniversary restoration!

Endfield’s reenactment of a great British victory in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 has become one of the most influential films of the 1960s (Peter Jackson and Ridley Scott’s overt imitations are just the beginning!). Endfield presents the contradictions of imperialism as a company of Welsh soldiers give their all for someone else’s Queen and Country, fighting against a people defending their homeland. But he never tips his hand, improbably but persuasively crafting an ambiguous parable. Zulu might be the most conventionally epic of Endfield’s films, but it is no less complex and political than the movies upon which his reputation as a member of Red Hollywood was founded.