The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Bridge on the River Kwai is a BritishAmerican 1957 World War II epic film directed by David Lean and starring William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, and Sessue Hayakawa. Based on the novel Le Pont de la Rivire Kwai 1952 by Pierre Boulle, the film is a work of fiction, but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 194243 for its historical setting. The movie was filmed in Ceylon now known as Sri Lanka. The bridge in the film was near Kitulgala.

In World War II, British prisoners arrive by train at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. The commandant, Colonel Saito Sessue Hayakawa, informs them that all prisoners, regardless of rank, are to work on the construction of a railway bridge over the River Kwai that will connect Bangkok and Rangoon. The senior British officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson Alec Guinness, reminds Saito that the Geneva Conventions exempt officers from manual labour.At the following mornings assembly, Nicholson orders his officers to remain behind when the enlisted men are sent off to work. Saito slaps him across the face with his copy of the conventions and threatens to have them shot, but Nicholson refuses to back down. When Major Clipton James Donald, the British medical officer, intervenes, Saito leaves the officers standing all day in the intense tropical heat. That evening, the officers are placed in a punishment hut, while Nicholson is locked in an iron box. ........

Source: Wikipedia