The real River Kwai, and its bridge, is in what was then Siam, now Thailand. The name ‘River Kwai’ refers to the Khwae Noi and Khwae Yai rivers in western Thailand, which converge to become the Mae Klong river at Kanchanaburi, about 70 miles northwest of Bangkok, and it was across the Mae Klong that the infamous bridge was built. The process of adapting Pierre Boulle's French-language novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai was difficult (more on that later), but the two writers.

Scene from The Bridge on the River Kwai Alec Guinness (second from left) in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), directed by David Lean. © 1957 Columbia Pictures CorporationThe action of the movie takes place in a Japanese (POW) camp in during. As it opens, two POWs, the American navy commander Shears ( ) and an Australian, are digging graves for their companions. A regiment of British prisoners arrives, whistling the “Colonel Bogey March,” under the command of Colonel Nicholson ( ). The camp commander, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), informs the prisoners that they will all begin working on the building of a railway the following day. Nicholson advises Saito that the officers cannot be required to do manual labour according to the.

When, the next morning, Saito orders all the British prisoners to begin building the bridge under the command of a Japanese engineer, Nicholson and the other officers refuse, even when Saito threatens to kill them. They remain standing at attention throughout the day. At the end of the day, the officers are imprisoned, and Nicholson is thrown into “the oven”—a small box made of corrugated metal. In the meantime, Shears manages to escape. After a few days, the British medical officer Major Clipton (James Donald) tries to persuade both Saito and Nicholson to compromise, but both are unyielding. The bridge construction is going badly, however, and Saito offers to Nicholson in an effort to get the structure completed on schedule. Nicholson will not cooperate and finally insists that the bridge can be built only under his command.Nicholson undertakes the construction of a well-made bridge, at first thinking it a good way to improve the morale and of his regiment but gradually coming to regard the structure not as a part of the enemy war effort but as a monument to British ingenuity.

Concurrently, Shears, after a harrowing journey in which he nearly loses his life more than once, is rescued by the British and then required to lead a group of headed by Major Warden (Jack Hawkins) back to the POW camp that he escaped from in order to blow up the bridge. At the POW camp, Nicholson not only requires officers to work on the bridge but also pulls men from the hospital in order to meet Saito’s deadline for the project. The commandoes arrive for their mission as the finishing touches are being put on the bridge. While the British prisoners celebrate their accomplishment that night, the commandoes wire the bridge with explosives to be detonated by a plunger operated by a hidden soldier, timed to collapse the bridge just as an inaugural train carrying Japanese dignitaries is crossing it. When the sun rises, the commandoes realize that the water level in the river has fallen, exposing the explosives and wiring. After Saito cuts a ceremonial ribbon, Nicholson spots a detonator wire.

As the train approaches, Nicholson frantically pulls up the wire, following it to find the detonator. When he asks for Saito’s help in cutting the wires, the hidden commando, Lieutenant Joyce (Geoffrey Horne), leaps up and kills Saito. Gears 5 wallpaper. Nicholson desperately tries to keep Joyce from depressing the plunger, while Shears and Warden try to kill Nicholson. First Joyce and then Shears are killed in the ensuing gunfire. Nicholson suddenly realizes that his pride in the bridge’s construction has blinded him to his military duty. Mortally wounded, he falls onto the plunger, the bridge is blown up, and the train with the dignitaries falls into the river.

The number of people coming to Kanchanaburi to see 'the' bridge from the movie 'Bridge on the River Kwai' are probably not as numerous as they once were. Still, there are those who still show up expecting to see the gerry-rigged construction of timber and bamboo (even though it was blown up in the movie). The concrete and steel bridge they're presented with is a bit less impressive.Of course, the truth is that there never was a bridge over the River Kwai. The ' ran parallel to the Kwai Noi river but never crossed it. The bridge people flock to see is really over the Mae Klong River. After the 1957 movie came out and people began coming to Kanchanaburi in search of 'the bridge', the local authorities renamed a section of the Mae Klong to Kwai Yai. Not the bridge on the River KwaiThe bridge over the Mae Klong (or Kwai Yai, or whatever) really was part of the death railway, built with prisoner and slave labor by the Japanese during World War II.

There were actually two bridges built over the river here. A wooden bridge like you see built in the movie (which was actually shot in Sri Lanka) was built first about 100 meters up-river from the current bridge to expedite construction on the line beyond the river. The concrete and steel 'main' bridge was added during the war when the steel became available.

Both bridges were bombed by allied planes near the end of the war. The squarish center spans of the bridge are post-war replacements. The wooden bridge was demolished after the war since its thick structure blocked the flow of the river.The bridge has steel plates over the ties to make it easy to walk over the span. There are also viewing platforms between the trestles to give you a view of the river as well as to give you a place to get out of the way if you're on the bridge when a train comes.