The Bridge on the River Kwai (Original Version)

Why I waste my time watching all of the newest films that come out (of course, not all of them are bad) when there are plenty of tried-and-true classics waiting to be discovered is something I'll never completely understand. It's not even like I have the excuse that I don't know about them, or even don't have the time (because I do). Still, I do like the feeling of seeing something for the first time and THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI delivered everything I expected and more. The story is set during WWII and is about a group of British POWs who arrive at a Japanese labor camp in the Burmese jungle (modern-day Myanmar). They are tasked with building a bridge over the Kwai River, but initially have difficulty because the camp's commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has a clash of wills with their own commander, Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness). There is also an American POW, Shears (William Holden) who manages to escape but is "recruited" to lead a team back to the jungle to blow up the bridge. If there's one thing that David Lean knows how to do, it's craft an epic film and that's exactly what he did here. It did drag a little bit for me in the first hour, but it was an engrossing watch after that point. It almost goes without saying that this film is perfect from a technical standpoint, and some truly great images were captured. The acting was also just as good, especially from the three key players: Alec Guiness, Sessue Hayakawa, and William Holden. Each of them brought their A-game and turned in probably the best performances of their entire careers. One aspect of the story I really liked was the psychological battle of wills that occurs between Saito and Nicholson. Both of them were equal in rank, but also similar in their approach to their own specific situations. One might say that they were cut from the same cloth. William Holden rounds out this trio of characters by portraying a man who is drafted for a difficult task in spite of his desire to just keep on surviving, and in a cruel turn of irony, puts him at cross-purposes with Nicholson who feels like he is doing good work by building the bridge. Although the film plays it rather close to the vest in terms of message-making, only really making its statement in the final minutes, I thought that it handled the subject of war in a rather balanced and mature way despite taking a stand against it. Nobody is turned into a villain, instead having each major character be an unwitting foil to the other in a way that suggests what is later explicitly stated (by the medic) as madness. It's not perhaps the most original of anti-war statements, but it was portrayed to extremely good effect. Also, the last 20 minutes or so is as riveting and tense as anything that has come out since. Granted, it's not perfect as there is a rather superfluous romance between Shears and his nurse but, studio-mandated love interest aside, this film stands as not only one of the best anti-war films ever made, but one of the best films period.

I was fortunate to be able to visit the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai on a recent trip to Thailand. The bridge is about a three hour drive from Bangkok not far from the border with Burma. In Kanchanaburi I picked up a tourist brochure called "The Death Railway & the Bridge on the River Kwai". This is from its introduction... "In June of 1942, 61,000 British, Australian, American, New Zealand, Danish and Dutch POWs as well as an estimated 200,000 laborers from India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia,Singapore, Burma and Thailand were put to work by the Japanese Imperial Army to construct a railway line 415km long to link Kanchanaburi to the Japanese Base camp in Thanbyuzayat in Burma, this ensuring a direct line from Singapore through Malaya and Thailand to link up with the railway network in Burma. Apart from supplying their bases in Burma, the Japanese had also planned to use the railway to launch an attack on India. The decision to build the railway was made by the Japanese Cabinet following the decisive defeat of its navy at the battle of Midway in June 1942. At that time a large Japanese army was based in Burma and another in New Guinea and adjacent islands. Both depended for support and supplies on the navy which after Midway no longer enjoyed its former supremacy. The Japanese were aware hat the British had surveyed a proposed railway linking Burma and Thailand in 1910 and that they had abandoned the project in 1912 because of difficult terrain, endemic disease and high monsoonal rainfall. To planners studying the map in Tokyo however, the construction of a 415 kilometer railway seemed an obvious solution to supplying the army in Burma and thus avoid the hazardous seas route around Singapore and through the Straits of Malacca. Accordingly two Japanese railway regiments totaling 12,000 men were assigned to the railway project...The deadline for completion was August of 1943 and in June of 1942 the Japanese began moving prisoners of the war to Burma and Thailand. Construction of the railway began on the 16th of September 1942. First estimates by the Japanese engineers suggested that it would take at least five years to build, but under tremendous pressure, the POWs were forced to complete the bridge in 16 months. On the 25 December 1943 the "the Railway of Death" was completed... The effect was devastating. 16,000 allied prisoners of war lost their lives when this railway was built dying together with 100,000 slave Asian laborers who aren't mentioned all that often...Every kilometer of railway track cost the lives of 38 allies." Historian Andrew Roberts writes, "When considering the horrific cruelties inflicted on European POWs by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War, it is important to see them in the overall context of atrocities such as the Rape of Nanking. Whereas 6.2 per cent of British Commonwealth prisoners of the Japanese died between 1941 and 1945, the figures were 23 per cent for the Dutch, 41.6 for the Americans and a monstrous 77 per cent (230,000 out of 300,000) for Indonesian forced laborers...The literature covering what one historian has called 'The Horror in the East' is voluminous, and the Kachanaburi death camp on the River Kwai, Unit 731's anthrax experiments, Chang Jail in Singapore, Korean 'comfort' women, the Bataan Death March and so on have particularly foul places in the long history of man's inhumanity to man." ( The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War ). Japanese Commander: "If you work hard you will be well treated, but if you do not work hard you will be punished." The museum had photographs and artifacts from the construction of the bridge... The Bridge over the River Kwai was bombed by allied aircraft during the war. I stopped at the nearby Kanchanburi cemetery to see some of the graves of the victims of the "Railway of Death". When I finally arrived at the bridge after a 3 hour car journey this is what I first saw... Walking over the bridge, I met a musician who was, of course, playing the famous Colonel Bogey's March tune on his violin. I put a couple of US dollars into his violin case. He stopped playing and asked me to come over and check out something on the bridge. I was curious as he had me feel with my hand on the outer side of the steel bridge -- I could detect the unmistakable marks of bullet holes that had been caused by strafing from allied planes during the war. The movie, Bridge on the River Kwai, won the academy award for best picture in 1957 and is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest films of all time. It was directed by David Lean, shot on location in Ceylon and based on a novel by French author Pierre Boulle. Alec Guinness, who had served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve during World War II and piloted a landing craft in the 1943 invasion of Sicily, won the Academy award for best actor, playing the role of the unbending Colonel Nicholson. William Holden and Sessue Hayakawa co-starred. The movie's theme message of collaboration was, perhaps, more appropriately suited to occupied France rather than Southeast Asia -- the real life Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey did not collaborate and worked to delay the railway's completion. Contrary to film's dramatic conclusion, the bridge was NOT destroyed by the allies during the war. It was hit by allied bombers (see above) but it was reconstructed and, as you can see, is still standing today. If you liked Bridge on the River Kwai you will also enjoy America Invades America Invades: How We've Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth by Kelly / Laycock and Italy Invades

GREATEST WAR MOVIE OF ALL TIME, AND THE BRIDGE STILL STANDS TODAY.

Have seen this movie manu times, from vcd to dvd. Nostalgic.

Ok

Ein Klassiker, der in technischer Hinsicht ohne Zweifel absolut brillant ist, mit Top-Leistungen in Ausstattung, Photographie, Schnitt etc. Leans Einstreuungen von Detail- und Naturaufnahmen(stapfende Füße, Fledermäuse, Geier) sind sehr effektvoll, Alec Guiness, Sessue Hayakawa und William Holden sind exzellent. Trotzdem gibt es zwei (zusammenhängende) Probleme. Erstens ist der Film zu lang und konnte meine Aufmerksamkeit nicht ausnahmslos halten. Zweitens ist dies kaum ein Kriegsfilm, sicherlich kein Anti-Kriegsfilm. Der Krieg dient vielmehr als Kulisse für das (in der Tat faszinierende) Machtduell der beiden Kommandanten im Gefangenencamp und eine Abenteuergeschichte um das Sprengkommando. Letztere wurde von den Filmemachern zum Romanstoff dazuerfunden. Zwar ist es eine gute Idee und gibt der Hauptfigur eine zusätzliche tragische Dimension, die Brücke am Ende in die Luft zu jagen. Doch trotz aller Verwundungen und Todesfälle nimmt das Kommandounternehmen eher den Charakter einer Safari an, und die Charakterisierungen der Teilnehmer sind recht flach (Holden gibt seiner Figur zwar Persönlichkeit, diese ist aber nicht eng genug mit den beiden Hauptfiguren verknüpft). Man merkt, daß dieser Teil aufgepfropft ist (schlimm: die angedeutete Liebesgeschichte von Holden). Das nimmt dem Gesamtwerk die Konzentration auf das Hauptthema, wodurch es zwar zum gigantischen Publikumserfolg wurde, aber die Chance zum Meisterwerk verfehlte. Filmwertung 8/10. Die (Doppel-)DVD bietet eine Menge fürs Geld: Top-Bildqualität (sorgfältig restaurierte Fassung), hervorragenden Originalton und u.a. ca. 1 1/2 Stunden Dokumentationen. Der komplette Film ist auf der ersten Scheibe, merkwürdigerweise hat mein DVD-Spieler nach dem Layerwechsel die Laufzeit nicht weitergezählt, sondern einen zweiten Titel begonnen. Aber das ist eine Kleinigkeit, die das Vergnügen nicht trübt. Übrigens: Wer dies für eine Vollbild-Version hält, sollte vielleicht mal seine Hardware-Einstellungen überprüfen! Vom Cinemascope-Originalformat ist maximal ein kleiner Teil verlorengegangen.

Soy fan de los grandes clásicos del cine y cuando supe que Sony Pictures había restaurado en formato 4K Ultra HD el clásico "The Bridge On The River Kwai" o "El Puente Sobre El Rio Kwai" la compré de inmediato. Se ve espectacular, mejor que nunca, con una calidad de imagen fuera de serie. Llegó rápido y en perfectas condiciones, el único inconveniente es que ya no trae Slipcover de colección.

An excellent transfer. Vibrant colours. The Malcolm Arnold score has been re-channelled for stereo effect. Sumptuous presentation with the vibrant steel box. A great film.