DVD Features:
- Widescreen Presentation
- Digitally Mastered Audio & Anamorphic Video
- Audio: English 5.1 (Dolby Digital) and 2-Channel (Dolby Surround) French, Spanish, Portuguese
- Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean & Thai
- Interactive and Animated Menus
- Scene Selections with Motion
- Theatrical Trailers
- Talent Files
- Rated: PG
- Closed captioning available
- Run Time: 2 hours, 42 minutes
- Video: Color
- Released: November 21, 2000
- Originally Released: 1957
- Label: Columbia Pictures
- Encoding: Region 1; USA & Canada
- Packaging: Keep Case
- Audio:
- Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo - English
- Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
- Additional Release Material:
- Trailers:
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
- THE GUNS OF NAVARONE
- FAIL-SAFE
- Interactive Features:
- Interactive Menus
- Scene Access
- Text/Photo Galleries:
- Biographies:
- David Lean - Director
- Alec Guinness - Star
- William Holden - Star
- Jack Hawkins - Star
- Sessue Hayakawa - Star
Performers, Cast and Crew:
Major Awards:
Academy Awards 1957 -
Best Actor: Alec Guinness
Academy Awards 1957 -
Best Adapted Screenplay: Carl Foreman; Michael Wilson & Pierre Boulle
Academy Awards 1957 -
Best Cinematography: Jack Hildyard
Academy Awards 1957 -
Best Director: David Lean
Academy Awards 1957 -
Best Film Editing
Academy Awards 1957 -
Best Original Score: Malcolm Arnold
Academy Awards 1957 -
Best Picture
Entertainment Reviews:
Chicago Sun-Times - 04/18/1999
"...Lean handles the climax with precision and suspense..."
USA Today - 11/17/2000
"...[A] masterpiece...purely enjoyable..."
Entertainment Weekly - 11/24/2000
"...[A] masterpiece....That rare film about something as seemingly black-and-white as World War II that is colored entirely in shades of gray, and the better for it..."
Total Film - 03/01/2001
"...It's certainly weathered well thanks to its novel and ingenious approach to presenting multiple perspectives of the Second World War..."
Premiere - 12/01/2003
"...[T]wo compelling stories jelled into one sprawling action film..."
Total Film - 06/01/2011
5 stars out of 5 -- "[I]ts combination of sly satire, poignancy and sheer excitement is still astonishing."
Sight and Sound - 07/01/2011
"The absence of button-pushing triumphalism is striking, as indeed is the long game played by Lean's direction."
Description by OLDIES.com:
When British P.O.W.s build a vital railway bridge in enemy-occupied Burma, Allied commandos are assigned to destroy it in David Lean's epic World War II adventure
The Bridge On the River Kwai.
Spectacularly produced, The Bridge On the River Kwai captured the imagination of the public and won seven 1957 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness) and Best Director. Even its theme song, an old WWI whistling tune, the "Colonel Bogey March," became a massive worldwide hit. The Bridge On the River Kwai continues today as one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time.
Product Description:
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.
Plot Keywords:
Adventure |
Classic |
Epic |
Essential Cinema |
Prison / Prisoners |
Recommended |
Theatrical Release |
War |
World War II
Production Notes:
- THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1997.
- Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, stood in for Burma (now known as Myanmar).
