British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid t... Read allBritish POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
- Won 7 Oscars
- 30 wins & 7 nominations total
- Colonel Green
- (as Andre Morell)
- Captain Kanematsu
- (as Henry Okawa)
- Lieutenant Miura
- (as Keiichiro Katsumoto, K. Katsumoto)
- Director
- Writers
- Pierre Boulle
- Carl Foreman(originally uncredited)
- Michael Wilson(originally uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Best Picture Winners by Year
Best Picture Winners by Year
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaColonel Saito was inspired by Major Risaburo Saito, who, unlike the character portrayed in this movie, was said by some to be one of the most reasonable and humane of all of the Japanese prison camp commandants, usually willing to negotiate with the P.O.W.s in return for their labor. Such was the respect between Saito and Lieutenant Colonel Toosey (upon whom Colonel Nicholson was based), that Toosey spoke up on Saito's behalf at the war crimes tribunal after the war, saving him from the gallows. Ten years after Toosey's 1975 death, Saito made a pilgrimage to England to visit his grave.
- GoofsJapan was not a signatory of the Geneva Conventions until 1953, therefore there was no expectation by Allied prisoners of being treated in accordance with them. In fact, the Japanese mistreatment of prisoners of war led to the review and update of the conventions in 1949.
- Quotes
Maj. Warden: You'll go on without me. That's an order. You're in command now, Shears.
Commander Shears: You make me sick with your heroics! There's a stench of death about you. You carry it in your pack like the plague. Explosives and L-pills - they go well together, don't they? And with you it's just one thing or the other: destroy a bridge or destroy yourself. This is just a game, this war! You and Colonel Nicholson, you're two of a kind, crazy with courage. For what? How to die like a gentleman, how to die by the rules - when the only important thing is how to live like a human being!... I'm not going to leave you here to die, Warden, because I don't care about your bridge and I don't care about your rules. If we go on, we go on together.
- Crazy creditsAnd introducing Geoffrey Horne
- Alternate versionsVarious versions have different main credits. There is the original that gives screenplay credit to Pierre Boulle, there is the restored version in which previously blacklisted Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson are credited and there is the original version that was distributed to cinemas at the time still lacking in CinemaScope equipment in which the Cinema Scope credit is omitted and the credits formatted to fit the smaller frame.
- ConnectionsEdited into The Geisha Boy (1958)
- SoundtracksColonel Bogey March
(1914) (uncredited)
Music by Kenneth Alford
Arranged by Malcolm Arnold
Whistlers trained by John Scott
Whistled by Alec Guinness with British Prisoners of War
There is almost no element of -Kwai- that is not praise-worthy. David Lean's direction is tight and evocative. The cinematography is great (even though the color seems increasingly drained in film versions that I have seen). The acting is top-notch. I honestly believe that this is Alec Guiness's best performance, and Sessue Hayakawa is also highly sympathetic and believable. William Holden and Jack Hawkins round out the cast nicely.
The musical score is also right on. Simply put, -Kwai- is an excellently constructed film made by people who obviously cared a great deal about it. As a result, the viewer comes to care a great deal about it as well.
Clearly -Kwai- is an anti-war film. There is no glorification here. War is brutal, period. It's brutality is not captured here in terms of gory carnage or senseless battles. Instead, the psychological dimension of brutality comes across clearly. Yet, -Kwai- also shows the resilience of the human spirit as well as its complexity. One is left wondering if participation in World War II not only psychologically brutalized the characters played by Guiness, Hayakawa, and Holden but also if it simultaneously uplifted them. The paradox is striking to me each time I view this film. War can act both as a positive and negative catalyst, and it can do both of these things at the same instant.
So, is -The Bridge on the River Kwai- a war movie or an anti-war movie? I think Lean clearly preferred the latter, but the subject matter and his approach to it may have landed somewhere in between.
Regardless, -Kwai- is a fantastic film experience and is not to be missed. It is, simply put, my very favorite film--bar none.
- Wormtongue1
- Dec 10, 1999
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $3,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $27,200,000
- Gross worldwide
- $27,200,463
- Runtime2 hours 41 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.55 : 1