Bridge on the River Kwai

[Barry]

      The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 action adventure war movie that has an interesting connection to Planet of the Apes. The book was was written by the same author, Pierre Boulle.
 
The movie is loosely based on the actual building of the Burma Railroad in 1942 to 1943. (but this is fiction, there are many historical inaccuracies)  In this movie, Obi-Wan Kenobi, better known as Alec Guinness, leads a group of British prisoners who are in a Japanese prison camp. To stop their mistreatment, torture and abuse and to keep them busy he agrees to build a bridge that the Japanese need.
 
The movie is kind of divided into two parts. A second part is the story of the military men getting together to destroy the bridge. Of course, they meet in the finale in a very famous end.
 
The movie is two hours and 40 minutes long and, in my opinion, would not be made today at that length. While this is a very good movie, beautifully photographed, the deliberate pacing is not what we see in today’s films. In fact, we haven’t seen this sort of pacing in about 40 years. But the deliberate pacing does bring out more of what the men were feeling and thinking because there is no quick resolution to anything. The acting is superb.
 
The 4K video starts off a little weak but then gets stronger very quickly into the movie. The audio is in Atmos and was recently redone enhancing many sound effects. However, there is not a huge amount of the facts in this movie, which is typical of movies of that era. There is also a small romance in the movie that has nothing to do with anything and I don’t know why it’s there because it doesn’t develop. (the movie, of course, would have been shorter without it.)
 
But this is a fascinating study on how they made movies then. I thoroughly enjoyed it although I wish the pace was a little faster. I would give it 4 ½ stars out of five.
 
 

[David Vaughn]

Thanks Barry.  I enjoy this one as well 

[bmoney]

Great movie! Obi wan kanobi at his best

[AVSCraig]

Great classic film. Admittedly I haven't watched the 4K disc yet. 

[Paul Heroy]

Got this on 4K BD last year and watched it, not long after seeing the Lawrence of Arabia 4K, so that was a nice David Lean pairing. It looked great to me for a movie of that age. I pretty much agree with what Barry wrote - it's a slower pace than I would like, but the older I get the less I like the non-stop frenetic style so common now. (I feel like that's in part due to globally marketing movies where action is easy to translate to another language/culture - in addition to the influence of video games etc.) 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review Barry and yes, a great movie to have..

[David Vaughn]

Here's my review that was in the print magazine when the 4K was first released:

The Bridge on the River Kwai UHD Blu-ray


Captured in 1943, a battalion of British soldiers is forced to work as slave labor to build a bridge for the Japanese over the river Kwai. The sadistic POW commander, Col. Saito, insists the British officers work alongside the enlisted personnel against the bylaws of the Geneva Convention. British officer, Col. Nicholson brings this to the attention of Saito who promptly puts him in the “hot box” until he changes his tune. Although, Nicholson refuses to backdown and a battle of wills ensues. Saito eventually realizes he’s fighting a losing battle and must find a way to inspire the prisoners to work faster and Nicholson is the key to getting the bridge built on time.
 
The word “masterpiece” gets thrown around a lot, but this one truly fits the definition. Director David Lean had a successful career leading up to this Oscar-winner, but his hat trick of this, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago put the famed director in a class of his own. In fact, if it weren’t for The Sound of Music, he most likely would have directed three Best Picture winners over the span of eight years! The painstaking filming process for this film are well catalogued but it’s still hard to believe that Lean actually built the bridge that’s the centerpiece of the story.
 
With a 60-year-old film one can’t expect it to look like a crystal clear digitally shot modern production, so to compare it to such would be unfair. What can be said is the film has never looked better—warts and all. Certain scenes suffer from filming anomalies and don’t translate well to 4K, but when it looks good, it looks really good—as in damn-near flawless. It teams with detail and lets the natural film grain show without any hint of compression noise. The colors have never looked so full and lifelike and the masterpiece will surely attract a new generation of film enthusiasts.
 
Given its age, I didn’t expect much from the Dolby Atmos soundtrack which is drawn from the original mono track. Dynamic range is very compressed and dialog is sometimes difficult to understand, especially Saito’s monologues. The Oscar-winning score suffers the same fate although the imaging and soundstage are much fuller than one would expect.
 

There aren’t any new bonus materials for the UHD release, although all of the supplements from the previously released Blu-ray are included on the bundled disc. These include some vintage featurettes, photo galleries, trailers, a Picture-In-Graphics Track and a UV Digital Copy.

[bmoney]

Print magazine? What’s that?

[AVSCraig]

Print magazine? What’s that?

I get the following print magazines - 

Wine Spectator

American Rifleman

Peloton

And I've read 9 print books in the last year !

[bmoney]

Oh books I read a ton of books. But magazines. I don’t see the need at this point 

[David Vaughn]

Print magazine? What’s that?

LOL

They are definitely dying out. 

[AVSCraig]

Oh books I read a ton of books. But magazines. I don’t see the need at this point

Why read books then. Kindle. I like turning the pages and I'll have them after the Chinese EMP attack cleans the internet of everything. 

[David Vaughn]

Why read books then. Kindle. I like turning the pages and I'll have them after the Chinese EMP attack cleans the internet of everything.

I read "real" books too. I have a pretty big library of them (and tons in boxes in the garage). if I really like a book, I'll read it more than one time. I have a few books I've read countless times like "The Hunt for Red October," "Without Remorse," and Timothy Zahn's "Heir to the Empire" trilogy. 

[Paul Heroy]

I have a Kindle Oasis and it's the first ebook reader I tried that I really liked better than a print book. The main thing I miss is being able to quickly flip back pages to check something but I think it has features to mitigate that which I just haven't dug into. It also has advantages that a book can't like adjustable type size, very light weight for even the most ridiculously long tomes, and no need for a light that has to be shining directly on the page. The only other thing I miss is cheap used books, and I have mixed feelings about that as it doesn't support the author.

But I still get some print magazines - mostly A/V stuff like S&V, Sterophile, Widescreen Review - though I have replaced many with websites.