Tuesday, January 7, 2014

What is a summary of the movie Shaka Zulu: The Last Great Warrior (made in 2001)?

Shaka Zulu: The Last Great Warrior is a 2001 film by Joshua Sinclair. It is the feature-length sequel to a miniseries that aired the same year. It is set in the late imperialist period of the early nineteenth century, when the far reaches of Africa and the Pacific Islands are being colonized and incorporated into Europe's empires in their race for slave labor and land capital. The film begins as Prentice Mungo, a British slave-trader, sets off from his homeland. He soon learns that his vessel is harboring a British stowaway named Katherine.
Katherine, the film's protagonist, seeks safe passage to Africa to locate her father, a British military official. Prentice debates what to do with her during the arduous journey down the African coast. Before he can implement a solution, the order of the slave ship is upended when Shaka, the king of the Zulu tribe, organizes a revolt the moment the ship lands in Africa. Katherine is taken hostage to leverage the slaves' escape, and takes her into the African countryside, where she is forced to learn Zulu customs to survive and earn respect. Life in the Zulu tribe challenges her preconceptions of African cultures as primitive; Katherine learns that they are more similar than different, and manages to earn her freedom and find her father.
The movie poses an alternate narrative to the predominant story of African primitivism facing off against the West's enlightenment, sophistication, and religion, envisioning one where the West commits atrocities, while small factions of rebels reject it and break away to learn the values of cross-cultural altruism and collaboration.

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