The Bridge on the River Kwai

1957  /  UK /  161 minutes

Director:  David Lean
Screenplay:  Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, based on the novel The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle
Starring:  William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Genre:  Action, drama, war

This film is set in Thailand in 1943 and concerns a group of British Prisoners Of War led by principled dutiful gentleman officer Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Guinness) who are ordered by their Japanese captors, led by tough strict Colonel Saito (Hayakawa), to work on a rail bridge spanninjg the Kwai river.  After a long battle of wills between Nicholson and Saito, primarily due to the latter's insistence that officers work alongside the men, the two reach a compromise, and Nicholson and his men co-operate on the construction of the bridge, partly to boost the prisoner's morale and partly out of pride in British engineering.
Unbeknownst to anyone at the prison camp however, a small group of Allied soldiers, led by cynical realist American naval officer Shears (Holden), who has some secrets of his own, and who managed to escape from the prison camp, are moving through the jungle on  a dangerous mission to destroy the bridge by any means necessary.

Based on a novel by French author Pierre Boulle (whose work also inspired Planet of the Apes), this is an acknowledged cinema classic.  Directed by David Lean, the master of widescreen spectacle, it is a hugely entertaining film.  It's not an all-action shoot 'em up war film, although there are some exciting action set pieces, it's more of a character piece.  Particularly interesting is the relationship between Nicholson, practically the epitome of the stiff upper lipped British officer, and Saito, his Japanese counterpart, initially antagonistic it becomes something more complex.

The film was the winner of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and there are elements of it that have become part of cinema history, such as the prisoners whistling the "Colonel Bogey March" while marching, and the exciting climax.