The Bridge on the River Kwai [DVD] [2000]

Description

Product Description When British POWs 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(r), including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness), and Best Director. Even it's theme song, an old WWII whistling tune, the Colonel Bogey March, became a massive hit. THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI continues today as one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time. desertcart.co.uk Review 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 Review: A Glorious and Enthralling WWII 'Classic' Gets a Significantly Restored Picture for HD Blu-ray - This is a notable, enthralling and critically-acclaimed movie (it won 7 Oscars' and 3 BAFTAs, including the 'main' Film/Director categories) with extensive production-values, a big cast (with many famous actors in lead roles, it was only Alec Guinness that won the awards...) and very good effects to portray the final scenes involving 'that' bridge.. I got this on Blu-ray despite already owning it's 'Special' 2-disc DVD Edition, as whilst the DVD version had clearly been given some good treatment (it is to my eyes free of those annoying little white specks/scratches) with an excellent set of extras, this HD offering released some 10 years later features a '4K restoration'. So, whilst this Blu-ray didn't offer much more in the extras department (and actually also removes some !) it had the credentials of looking and perhaps sounding, courtesy of an accompanying DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack, even better than the DVD which was already quite good. Well, after watching it for the umpteenth time, this time on Blu-ray I can categorically confirm that it DOES offer noticeable improvements in the viewing experience. The restoration has dealt with what could viably be 'fixed' from what was apparently quite a 'problematic' production and resulting 'flawed' film footage.... Directed by the legendary David Lean, this is my favourite film of his and, along with 'The Cruel Sea' features my favourite performances by the actor I feel is most prominent/significant in the film - Jack Hawkins. He, along with Alec Guinness and William Holden get joint top-billing but I feel that Hawkins pips both of them in the performance stakes. Guinness won the awards and Holden is similarly proficient, with his part/presence leaving me of the opinion it was 'necessary' to gain production/finance from US studios - his character and actions always remind me of the similarly 'misplaced' aspects to the 'Hilts' character, an almost solitary US personality in another great WWII film 'The Great Escape'.... I will leave the finer arguments often held amongst others about the faithfulness/'dilution' of the story and depiction to the real-life situations suffered by many of our countrymen in WWII under Japanese 'rule', but what is inescapable about the film are the superb production-values, the attention to detail in certain acts and the unusual level of humour that exists through the majority of the running time. The major plot aspect is the determination to maintain military discipline in adversity, but a lot of the finer details might be missed as they are again of a military 'nature' but not by me (I served in HM Forces for 18 years), with a snippet of a scene at the commando training camp covering all those 'finer' aspects with firstly a comedic big arrow sign directing 'guests' to the abode of Shears, the attention paid to a departing 'guest', the hilarious way a PT instructor has to be selective with his admonishment of those duly distracted from the task in hand and then the delightful touch of the Jack Hawkins character having to perform a 'change step' action, to regain synchronisation with his Colonel after resuming their walk. Finally, this was until recently the ONLY film I've seen where the act of looking though binoculars was correctly depicted (ie a single circular view, NOT 2 adjoining circles....) until I recently saw 'Iron Man 3' - kudos Shane Black ! Contrary to some other reviews I've subsequently read, I never detected any print damage on the SE DVD so this Blu-ray already had one less thing to improve compared to similarly aged films. For me, where this Blu-ray improves things is with solely the picture, it is often much lighter and consistently much sharper. The only 'flaw' with the DVD picture I ever noticed were regular frame 'wobbles', with the appearance of a ripple passing across the picture. I compared and all those I knew that existed on the DVD are absent on the Blu-ray. I never felt that the musical soundtrack to this film was THAT dominant, there are only a few periods of forceful music and little else of great 'activity' note occurring. So, it is perhaps unsurprising that I couldn't really detect any great difference between the DD5.1 DVD soundtrack and the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 version on the Blu-ray. Both sound as good as each other, with neither particularly excelling when compared to films like 'The Battle of Britain' for example - in fact, both are crisp/clear but really quite 'flat' and certainly lacking any obvious spatial qualities, with all the audio being essentially 'front and centre'.... With this film being quite long and with Blu-ray being high-capacity, the rather ugly layer-change that occurs on the DVD is gone. New extras are a "Crossing the Bridge" picture-in-picture track, "The Steve Allen Show with William Holden and Alec Guinness" featurette and "The Bridge on the River Kwai Premiere" narrated by William Holden. However, some extras from the SE DVD are absent: the Isolated Music Score option and the Cast and Crew Biographies.... The Blu-ray also has no equivalent of the quite substantial booklet which came with the SE DVD, a poor replacement is the unusual inclusion of some interior box artwork - I've attached a photo of it. So, for me this film has a print quality which improves on the SE DVD by being a lot sharper and providing better contrast, plus previous image 'wobbles' have been removed. The sound quality was not noticeably better, so it's still a bit 'flat'. However, for an excellent film like this which had notable visual aspects the more important matters are the ones which have been improved to great effect. A few of the SE DVD extras are 'missing' but some new ones are added. Review: Colonel Nicholson: "We'll show them what the British soldier is capable of doing." - With the great David Lean behind the camera, a stellar cast, and a rollicking good story, this film really covers all bases. Evidence of this is that it won 7 Oscars at the 30th Academy Awards in 1958. No mean achievement. I think the reason this film is so good is due to the tragic irony that runs throughout the film and reaches one of the most dramatic finales in war movie history. Alec Guinness, who plays the stubborn Colonel Nicholson, is willing to collaborate with the Japanese by overseeing the building of a bridge that would link Bangkok to Rangoon. Of course the British High Command get wind of this and realise that the bridge must be blown. Herein lies the irony: Build a bridge and give the Japanese a taste of British engineering skill or destroy it to hinder Japanese expansionist ideals. Jack Hawkins, who plays Major Warden, leads a team of commandoes, including William Holden (Commander Shears) and Geoffrey Horne (Lieutenant Joyce), on a suicide mission to destroy the bridge. The film's runtime is 2 hours 21 mins and is a bit of a slow burn, but the story builds and you'll be eager to watch right until the end to see if the commandoes execute their mission successfully. In my opinion, one of the greatest war films ever made. Don't miss this one.