Zulu Dawn not well received and did not fare particularly well at the box office. Zulu Dawn Zulu Dawn is a 1979 American war film about the historical Battle of Isandlwana between British and Zulu forces in 1879 in South Africa. The screenplay was by Cy Endfield, from his book, and Anthony Storey. The film was directed by Douglas Hickox. The score was composed by Elmer Bernstein. "Zulu Dawn" is a prequel to "Zulu", released in 1964, which depicts the historical Battle of Rorke's Drift later the same day, and was co-written and directed by Cy Endfield. The film is set in
Ndwandwe–Zulu War was killed, and most of the Ndwandwe abandoned their lands and migrated north establishing Zulu-like (named Ngoni after the ethno-linguistic name "Nguni") kingdoms in Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. This was the final phase of the Mfecane, a catastrophic, bloody civil war and eventual migration of many different tribes in the area, initially (ca. 1802) caused by famine but ultimately as a result of escaping from the Zulus. The Ngoni groups caused their own havoc by using Zulu tactics in war. They established stronger political units in other countries and thus posed a threat to European colonisation, for example during