The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle. The film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–1943. The cast includes Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and received overwhemingly positive reviews.
About The Bridge on the River Kwai in brief
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean and based on the 1952 novel written by Pierre Boulle. The film uses the historical setting of the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–1943. The cast includes Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and received overwhemingly positive reviews from critics. It won seven Academy Awards at the 30th Academy Awards. In 1997, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. It has been included on the American Film Institute’s list of best American films ever made. In 1999, the British Film Institute voted the film the 11th greatest British film of the 20th century. The prisoners work as little as possible and sabotage what they can. British Major Warden invites him to join a commando mission to destroy the bridge before it is completed. U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Shears is so appalled at going back he confesses he is not an officer; he impersonated one, expecting better treatment from the Japanese. Shears, and Canadian Lieutenant Joyce reach the river in time with the assistance of Siamese women bearers and their chief Khun Yai. Under cover of darkness, Shears and Joyce plant explosives on the bridge towers. By the following day, the first train carrying important dignitaries and soldiers is scheduled to be carried across the bridge.
The bridge is destroyed by the British Army’s commandos, though one is killed in an encounter with a Japanese patrol and has to be taken to a hospital to be treated for his injuries. The next day, British Lieutenant Warden returns to the bridge to finish the job. The British Army gives up on the mission and the prisoners are allowed to return to Ceylon, where they are reunited with their families. The prison camp is eventually liberated by British soldiers and the Japanese are forced to abandon their plans to build a new bridge over the Kwai River. The Japanese engineers chose a poor site, and the new bridge is begun downstream. It will connect Bangkok and Rangoon, but it is not completed until after the Second World War. In the film, the prisoners try to escape by pretending to be American Navy officers, but are stopped by the Japanese, who shoot them dead. They then try to make their way to the British colony of Ceylon to avoid embarrassment. They are eventually rescued by a British officer, who tells them that he is an American Navy officer and is transferred to the UK. The three escape attempts fail, but one of them is able to make his way to a nearby village and is nursed back to health before completing his escape. The rest of the film is set in Burma and Ceylon in the early 1940s. It is one of the most popular films of the 1950s and 1960s, and is considered to be a classic British war film.
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This page is based on the article The Bridge on the River Kwai published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
