The Bridge on the River Kwai - BluRay (2011)
The Bridge on the River Kwai - BluRay Image Cover
Additional Images
Director:David Lean
Studio:Sony Pictures
Writer:Pierre Boulle
Rated:PG
Date Added:2013-07-28
Last Seen:2014-10-04
UPC:9317731084119
Price:$19.99
Awards:Won 7 Oscars, Another 23 wins & 5 nominations
Genre:Drama, War
Release:2011-06-07
IMDb:0050212
Location:BR0038
Duration:161
Aspect Ratio:2.55:1
Sound:AC-3
Languages:English, Spanish, French
Subtitles:English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean
Features:Boxed Collectors Edition
32 page booklet
12 replicas of original lobby cards
Holden and Guiness interviews
Beyond "The Bridge on the River Kwai"
The David Lean Collection
"WWII 60th Anniversary Collection"
"The True Story of the Bridge on the River Kwai" (History Channel)
David Lean  ...  (Director)
Pierre Boulle  ...  (Writer)
 
William Holden  ...  Shears
Alec Guinness  ...  Colonel Nicholson
Jack Hawkins  ...  Major Warden
Sessue Hayakawa  ...  Colonel Saito
James Donald  ...  Major Clipton
Geoffrey Horne  ...  Lieutenant Joyce
André Morell  ...  Colonel Green
Peter Williams  ...  Captain Reeves
John Boxer  ...  Major Hughes
Percy Herbert  ...  Grogan
Harold Goodwin  ...  Baker
Ann Sears  ...  Nurse
Heihachirô Ôkawa  ...  Captain Kanematsu
Keiichiro Katsumoto  ...  Lieutenant Miura
M.R.B. Chakrabandhu  ...  Yai
Summary: Director David Lean's masterful 1957 realization of Pierre Boulle's novel remains a benchmark for war films, and a deeply absorbing movie by any standard--like most of Lean's canon, "The Bridge on the River Kwai" achieves a richness in theme, narrative, and characterization that transcends genre.
The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum.

Shot on location in Sri Lanka, "Kwai" moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivors of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling--Lean doesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact.