THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Pierre Boulle | 208 pages | 02 Jun 2011 | Vintage Publishing | 9780099445029 | English | London, United Kingdom The Bridge on the River Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand – Travel Information and Travel Guide Since it involved cutting through sheer mountain face, this was — hence its name — among the most demanding parts for the forced labourers, and large numbers perished here. The site has been preserved as a memorial museum and walking trail, and it is a sobering but worthwhile destination — it also plays host to the annual ANZAC Day dawn memorial service. Select currency. My Plans. Open menu Menu. A couple of hours from Bangkok in western Thailand, Kanchanaburi province holds a more sombre message than most Thai tourist destinations. While nowadays it boasts a thriving backpacker scene, Kanchanaburi town is steeped in the gruelling history of the Death Railway, and is home to the Bridge on the River Kwai. Thailand: never colonised, but certainly occupied. Kanchanaburi and the Bridge on the River Kwai. The Death Railway during and after WW2. Remembering the past in modern-day Kanchanaburi. The most horrifying section of the railroad took its toll on hundreds of Australian POWs and had an infamous reputation. At one camp, upwards of leg amputations were performed as a result of jungle ulcers — without even so much as an aspirin for the pain. This expedited the work to ensure that the average 1 meter of cutting per day was expanded to 2 to 3 meters. Hellfire Pass was cut 75 meters long and 25 meters deep; at that pace, many died where they stood the previous day. It was later determined that for every railroad sleeper laid, one POW died. A piece of Hellfire Pass that spanned 3. It fell on three separate occasions, killing the morale, angering the Japanese, and ending the bloody progress they worked so hard to achieve. If a prisoner refused to obey, he would be smacked across the face or beaten, most likely by an officer to discourage others from doing the same. The relentless work of the POWs was never rewarded with rest, only punished with force. Despite all the suffering and death, there was a small sliver of hope that they would make it out alive. So we really had no time to think about the human cost. Among so many men in camp we had access to qualified experts in a wide range of fields, and all of us became skilled at the art of improvisation. The Japanese left him for dead, but Dunlop cared for him until the end of the war. Some locals were sympathetic to allied POWs and risked it all to bring aid. Boon Pong Sirivejjabhandu sacrificed a successful business and prosperity for several years. Boon Pong was a Thai merchant who used his contract with the Imperial Japanese Army to smuggle medicine and radio batteries to sick and dying POWs, mostly in tandem with Dunlop. His contract allowed him to enter the camp under little management. If caught, he would have met the wrath of the Japanese who entrusted him to carry out their orders. The railway was completed on Oct. After consulting with members from the Japanese Railway Regiment who had surrendered, 10, graves and makeshift cemeteries were discovered. The POWs told the liberators where to find their buried documents, records, and journals of the atrocities, which they had hidden from the Japanese. These provided firsthand accounts that would serve to prosecute Japanese commanders for war crimes. The Mad Mongrel was sentenced to death by hanging. The Australian government carried out death sentences by firing squad of those who were tried for crimes against humanity. The cinematography is great even though the color seems increasingly drained in film versions that I have seen. The acting is top-notch. I honestly believe that this is Alec Guiness's best performance, and Sessue Hayakawa is also highly sympathetic and believable. William Holden and Jack Hawkins round out the cast nicely. The musical score is also right on. Simply put, -Kwai- is an excellently constructed film made by people who obviously cared a great deal about it. As a result, the viewer comes to care a great deal about it as well. Clearly -Kwai- is an anti-war film. There is no glorification here. War is brutal, period. It's brutality is not captured here in terms of gory carnage or senseless battles. Instead, the psychological dimension of brutality comes across clearly. Yet, -Kwai- also shows the resilience of the human spirit as well as its complexity. One is left wondering if participation in World War II not only psychologically brutalized the characters played by Guiness, Hayakawa, and Holden but also if it simultaneously uplifted them. The paradox is striking to me each time I view this film. War can act both as a positive and negative catalyst, and it can do both of these things at the same instant. So, is -The Bridge on the River Kwai- a war movie or an anti- war movie? I think Lean clearly preferred the latter, but the subject matter and his approach to it may have landed somewhere in between. Regardless, -Kwai- is a fantastic film experience and is not to be missed. It is, simply put, my very favorite film--bar none. Looking for some great streaming picks? Check out some of the IMDb editors' favorites movies and shows to round out your Watchlist. Visit our What to Watch page. Sign In. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Full Cast and Crew. Release Dates. Official Sites. Company Credits. Technical Specs. Plot Summary. Plot Keywords. Parents Guide. The Real Story Behind ‘The Bridge On The River Kwai’ A small tourist train runs back and forth across the bridge. Spectacular light and sound show is the highlight of the festival. Kanchanaburi Town is located kms to the west of Bangkok. Regular buses ply the route from Southern Bus Terminal in Bangkok. Both air condition and non air condition buses are available throughout the day for the three hour journey. Those with own vehicles may use the newly constructed expressway from Pinklao. The updated timings for buses and trains are available at Tourism Authority of Thailand offices. Special trains run from Bangkok for tourists during weekends. On Saturdays and Sundays, the train leaves Bangkok at 6. It stops at Bridge River Kwai for 10 minutes. Tourists can use this time to sightsee and take photographs. The train further passes through the old POW camps. This train journey allows tourists to see the famous Bridge River Kwai and the historical places as well as enjoy the bewitching beauty of the rugged mountainous region. In response to this, Nicholson informs Saito that, under the Hague Conventions and , officers cannot be required to do hard work. Saito reiterates his demand and Nicholson remains adamant in his refusal to submit his officers to manual labor. Because of Nicholson's unwillingness to back down, he and his officers are placed in the "ovens"—small, iron boxes sitting in the heat of day. Eventually, Nicholson's stubbornness forces Saito to relent. Construction of the bridge serves as a symbol of the preservation of professionalism and personal integrity to one prisoner, Colonel Nicholson, a proud perfectionist. Pitted against Colonel Saito, the warden of the Japanese POW camp, Nicholson will nevertheless, out of a distorted sense of duty, aid his enemy. While on the outside, as the Allies race to destroy the bridge, Nicholson must decide which to sacrifice: his patriotism or his pride. Boulle's portrayal of the British officers often verged on the satirical, with, for example, Colonel Nicholson being portrayed as military "snob". Boulle also examines friendship between individual soldiers, both among captors and captives. The victorious Japanese soldiers cooperate with their prisoners through the construction of the bridge. The incidents portrayed in the book are mostly fictional, and though it depicts bad conditions and suffering caused by the building of the Burma Railway and its bridges, the reality was appalling. Historically the conditions were much worse. On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel; and if he had, he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners. Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan , writes that Pierre Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers. A transcript of the interview and the documentary as a whole can be found in the new edition of John Coast's book "Railroad of Death". Unlike the fictional Nicholson, Toosey was not a collaborator with the Japanese. Toosey, in fact, delayed building the bridge by obstruction. Whereas Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: termites were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed. It was later determined that for every railroad sleeper laid, one POW died. A piece of Hellfire Pass that spanned 3. It fell on three separate occasions, killing the morale, angering the Japanese, and ending the bloody progress they worked so hard to achieve. If a prisoner refused to obey, he would be smacked across the face or beaten, most likely by an officer to discourage others from doing the same. The relentless work of the POWs was never rewarded with rest, only punished with force. Despite all the suffering and death, there was a small sliver of hope that they would make it out alive.