Stars: Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Horne, Andre Morell, Sessue Hayakawa, James Donald, Percy Herbert, Ann Sears, Peter Williams, Harold Goodwin, K. Katsumoto, Henry Okawa

Director: David Lean

Summary: Set in Burma during World War II, the story follows British P.O.Ws forced to build a large bridge for the Japanese, while Allied commandos are sent to destroy it. Winner of seven Academy Awards.

One of the all-time great war films, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI is yet another classic from the marvelous David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DR. ZHIVAGO). The film is an outstanding, psychologically complex adaptation of Pierre Boulle's 1952 novel, a classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson (a fabulous Alec Guinness), the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans. Although credited to screenwriter Carl Foreman, the script was actually written by blacklisted writer Michael Wilson. The film garnered seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Guinness). The climax is one of the great finales in film history.

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Based on the true story of the building of a bridge on the Burma railway by British prisoners-of-war held under a savage Japanese regime in World War II, The Bridge on the River Kwai(1957) is one of the greatest war films ever made. The film received seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Performance (Alex Guinness), for Sir Malcolm Arnold's superb music, and for the screenplay from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote Monkey Planet, the inspiration for Planet of the Apes). The story does take considerable liberties with history, including the addition of an American saboteur played by William Holden, and an entirely fictitious but superbly constructed and thrilling finale. Made on a vast scale, the film reinvented the war movie as something truly epic, establishing the cinematic beachhead for The Longest Day(1962), Patton(1970) and A Bridge Too Far(1977). It also proved a turning-point in director David Lean's career. Before he made such classic but conventionally scaled films as In Which We Serve(1942) and Hobson's Choice(1953). Afterwards there would only be four more films, but their names are Lawrence of Arabia(1962), Dr Zhivago(1965), Ryan's Daughter(1970) and A Passage to India(1984).

On the DVD: Too often the best extras come attached to films that don't really warrant them. Not so here, where a truly great film has been given the attention it deserves. The first disc presents the film in the original extra-wide CinemaScope ratio of 2.55:1, in an anamorphically enhanced transfer which does maximum justice to the film's superb cinematography. The sound has been transferred from the original six-track magnetic elements into 5.1 Dolby Digital and far surpasses what many would expect from a 1950s' feature. The main bonus on the first disc is an isolated presentation of Malcolm Arnold's great Oscar-winning music score, in addition to which there is a trivia game, and maps and historical information linked to appropriate clips.

The second disc contains a new, specially produced 53-minute "making of" documentary featuring many of those involved in the production of the movie. This gives a rich insight into the physical problems of making such a complex epic on location in Ceylon. Also included are the original trailer and two short promotional films from the time of release, one of which is narrated by star William Holden. Finally there is an "appreciation" by director John Milius, an extensive archive of movie posters and artwork, and a booklet that reproduces the text of the film's original 1957 brochure. --Gary S Dalkin

Aspect Ratio:	2.55 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Disc One Wide Screen Presentation, Trivia Sabotage, Maps And Military Strategy, Isolated Score, Animated Menus, Disc Two Animated Menus, The Making Of Documentary, Two Featurettes, Filmographies, Gallery, Screensavers, Theatrical Trailer, Web Link
Subtitles:	Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Turkish
Year:	1957
Release Date:	December 4, 2000
Runtime:	155 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R 10001
Keywords:	River, War, Two, Bridge, Kwai, Wide, Screen, Discs
Genre:	War