Shaka Zulu: The Citadel

The heading that I chose is dubious by design. I am sure that there are equal numbers of people who will rip and debase this film for its assertions of Mandigo black and white fascination with each other as well as the ever reoccurring themes of white Emperialism / superiority and the tribes of humbled Black Africans. On the flip side, others will exalt the way in which Shaka can be likened to a Shaft of the 18th century, taking on the establishment almost single handedly and winning. Grace Jones disappears after the first quarter of the film and I was disappointed that the 6 foot Amazon never quite developed into the warrior that I had predicted. All in all I think most will be pleasantly surprised about the subtle twists, adequate acting and better than low budget cinematography.

I've waited 25 long years to see this movie and finally found it on popcornflix.com as a free to view. First time I've ever watched a free movie online!

Can't say much about the context of the story as my 'knowledge' of the slave trade and African history in general is limited to other similar US interpretations such as "Roots" and such. So my apologies when I say I actually enjoyed most of the film - being those sequences containing Henry Cele, naturally!

I really admired this chap. His performances are stellar especially considering he had no theatrical training or anything. He just seemed to emanate the character and personality of what one would assume would be the essence of Shaka's personality.

I also researched and found that he was quite a philanthropist and set up training camps for kids in his area and coached them in football. What a wonderful legacy!

I am keeping this at five star for one reason: Grace Jones. without her participation, it would have been significantly worse.

I wrote A review of this shortly after it was released on DVD in the US. That review has magically disappeared. It was one of the first reviews I ever wrote for IMDb.

Grace Jones was wonderful, she looked wonderful, but her appearance in this was simply a sad waste. I think she was maybe stuck into this as eyecandy just like David Hasselhoff was- they even made her character look similar to the character "Zula" from "Conan the Destroyer".

Somebody else claimed that they considered this miniseries racist, I don't see anything "racist" about this, not really. It's just bad storytelling. Maybe there was an idea here that people would have been interested in seeing after all these years after Shaka Zulu. But that idea was mucked up.

For the rest of it, I couldn't understand the story whatsoever, of course I know now that the DVD that I rented back in 2005 or so was woefully incomplete and there was much more of a story than what I was allowed to see. So now that I know this information I will try to find the full miniseries and maybe that will fill in the blanks that the version that I saw left.

Had I had access to the full miniseries, I may have enjoyed whatever story was there. But this truncated DVD version distributed by Blockbuster Video, it never should have been released in the US. I rented this back in the day because I saw the words "Shaka Zulu" on the cover, as well as Grace Jones. Those two items made me grab it in my weekly rentals at the time. But I was immensely disappointed, the amount of my disappointment in this is equal to the amount of enjoyment I felt watching the original.

I agree with most of the other people who have commented, this does not deserve to even be associated with the original Shaka Zulu.

Also, in response to the comments written by one of the people involved in this production, why fictionalize something just to create a new, inadequate story, when the original story and the actual truth of history would have been sufficient when making any continuation?

Just tell the original story, mine the history books. And don't just grab actors that don't quite fit. Grace Jones of course was the right actress, but the part that they gave her was disappointing. This could've been so much better. So much better.

What really bothered me about this was that in the middle of the film, all of a sudden David Hasselhoff magically appears (sans his Baywatch entourage)... and then there is some gobbledygook about a fire and a shipwreck which doesn't look like a shipwreck at all.

If you are going to sink a ship in a story (and burn it), then sink it and burn it. It is the filmmakers job to make us believe it regardless of how it was done. This is why you build props and sometimes you even build miniatures in case you do not wish to destroy any full-size ships. Which appears to be what happened here, the story involves the sinking and destruction of a ship but they didn't want to do it for real and that made the whole thing completely unbelievable. Imagine, "Pirates of the Caribbean" being been made the same year without any ships blowing up and sinking. And the scene appears to have been inserted into the film just to show how heroic David Hasselhoff is. An honorable thing to do, to be sure, but it was kind of ludicrous to just have this dropped into the middle of the story. But the whole thing about a fire on a ship, I wasn't convinced. And then Karen Allen, although I like her very much, where was Indiana Jones?

My original review expressed my disappointment with this in a much better way.

I don't like writing negative reviews, I gave this five stars because although I didn't like it, I respect the work that was done. I have edited this a few times to clarify my points.

As a South African, it's an insult to think that someone was actually paid to produce this nonsense!

Despite the fact that the director was one of the writers for the original Shaka Zulu mini, this "addition" to the series is appalling! The original series was based on historical facts about a man who was a great strategist, leader and warrior. A man who played a large role in shaping the history of local tribes in South Africa.

The plot of this film, however, is nothing but hogwash, scraped from the bottom of the barrel by a writer that has failed to impress since the mid-nineties.

While Omar Sharif and Henry Cele are good actors, what is David Hasselhoff doing here, rescuing drowning slaves with his red buoy and bleached smile?

I kept expecting blond, busty women to appear out of nowhere and run across the screen in their tiny red bathing suits, for no apparent reason. Not that this would've been any more bizarre than the fantastical plot line that was probably dreamed up after 10 pints of beer at a fancy dress party, where someone's caveman costume inspired the writer to return to an African theme for his next "blockbuster".

This is the most racist movie I have seen yet. As such I gave it the lowest grade allowed since nonsense like this can inspire hatred that the world just does not need. It seems to show one race as totally inept, immoral, stupid and without any abilities to be strong or not be cowards. It shows another race as being strong, able to do anything and having the highest ethics. Even when this second race conquers people, those people just love to be conquered - as in the equally fictional "Alexander" movie. As many of us know, racism is wrong on two counts. The first is that it is very demeaning to a group of people and therefore evil. The second reason is that it is just plain dumb.

Anyone with an open mind who has traveled and been with multiple cultures as I have knows that there are no bad races, no bad religious choices, no bad countries, and no bad genders. However in each of those groups is a mixture of mostly good people mixed in with some bad people. Some of the greatest leaders of today such as Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King give us the answer. And the answer is that the opposite of racism is simply equality. Or as Rodney King who just passed away once said "Why cannot we all get along?". Great words are sometimes found when you search for them.

This movie makes a mockery of history. Anyone who has studied history and used even a little bit of logic would know that world conquerors or even local conquerors are not always nice people. Yet some Hollywood movies seem to claim that some are just wonderful. I am certain that they people that those world conquerors have killed have a different opinion. The other issue that students of history know is that slavery is far, far worse than Hollywood says. It was mostly worldwide and still goes on today. it was not just some white people in America enslaving Black people, but also some Black people enslaving Black people, some Black people at least in Northern Africa who raided European towns to enslave white people - including white women for their harems. Some Asians would enslave other Asians as well and South America and islanders and Europe and Asia were into this as well. So it was not one race who had slaves. It was not one race who were victims. It was far, far worse. And of course only "some" in each race participated as either slave owner or slave. However, a racist movie like this one distorts history and seems to make the claim that worldwide slavery really only occurred in one country - and that everyone in that race was guilty. Believe this movie if you are as bigoted as these people are. But I suggest, it is time for all of us to stop the nonsense of elevating a group or race to being supreme and others get thrown down as garbage. As Rodney King once said "Why can't we all just get along?"