Return from the River Kwai

Though a far cry from the David Lean classic, I thought this film offered reasonable entertainment for anyone with a passing interest in war films. Admittedly, there is not a great deal to say critically in the film's favour, but I think the current voter average is a little too harsh.

The film does suffer from a large dollop of poor acting, a sometimes inane and amateurish script, and often allows itself to become bogged down in clichés. The stilted and often unimaginative direction makes the film seem like a television show. However, at times the director allows the film to shine with some snappy and economical moments. The music is by the great Lalo Schifrin, and though not one of his best works (a little too simplistic and drenched in military cliché) it is quite catchy. But the special effects are too lacklustre to make the action sequences truly exciting.

However, Return from the River Kwai does have at least an interesting premise, and a decent screenplay which helps carry the story well. The on location shooting makes the settings look authentic, and the costumes are fairly decent. The film offers more than enough thrills and spills to keep you amused on a rainy afternoon. And of course it is great to see the always dependable George Takei and Edward Fox, as well as the lovable, late-great, Denholm Elliot on screen.

By no stretch a great movie, but one I am content to pass the time with. I do wish that television stations would program a movie like this for a daytime matinée instead of that made-for-television rubbish about some murderer in Mid-West America. Return from the River Kwai is a much better effort than those kind of movies, and it offers good, simple, lunchtime fare. At least a 5/10.

Contrary to the views expressed by several reviewers that this was an unnecessary movie that was cashing-in on the success of the original Bridge on the River Kwai movie, it is in fact very relevant in its association with the 'Death-Railway' project. It relates the true story of many of the survivors of the camps and of the tragedies that continued to afflict them. Especially tragic that they suffer further at the hands of what is now referred to as 'friendly fire'. The movie may be cheap and drawn out, but the story is worthy of being told. The battle of Singapore might not be a story that the allies might be proud of but the brave people who served in that theatre deserve to have their story told. Brave men all.

A sequel to BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI seems like a bad idea but RETURN FROM THE RIVER KWAI is unrelated to the David Lean classic apart from the title. This film does unlike the other Kwai film give us a realistic portrayal of Japanese P.O.W camps with amputations carried out on fully conscious patients and summary executions but that`s all it has in it`s favour . The characters are stereotypes with the British all stiff upper lipped while the Aussies call everyone " Mate " and say " P**s off " a lot

A very average little war movie with no relation to the original "Bridge on the River Kwai" other than in name and a brief bit at the start. It's just a pure latter-day cash-in on the name of the original in fact.

The cinematography is decent and the colours are very good. A few sparklies are evident in the very dark scenes but with a decent sound free from any unwanted hiss or crackle the overall quality is pretty good.

As a bonus I found a few nice pseudo-surround effects using my Yamaha digital sound projector so I can't complain about anything other than the story.

Oh it's not quite family viewing by the way, containing as it does a few "bastards" and one "piss off" (for which the orator was beheaded with a sword by the Japanese officer to whom the remark was addressed).

My aged parents with whom I watched it on one of their weekly visits were not impressed though I thought it was an absolute hoot.

I nearly forgot to mention that there is a serious anomaly about 47 minutes into the film (which I'll submit for inclusion on the database).

The POWs are travelling by a rather ancient and decrepit train along a single-track equally decrepit jungle railway to their destination, housed in horrid old wooden box-car like trucks. At this mid-point we see a view of the train with colourful contemporary main-line passenger coaches, which look rather nice and comfortable and are certainly not made of wood. The film then reverts to the wooden box cars.

I just recently had the tawdry task of sitting through the Japanese version of this film, with all the English dialog subtitled in Japanese and all the Japanese dialog (and there is a lot of it) not subtitled, so admittedly I couldn't tell 100% exactly what was going on the whole time.

The film begins well, reminding me of an episode of "Black Sheep Squadron" with George Takei kicking around a band of misfit G.I.'s in Burma while they're constantly under attack by Allied planes. There's some good action sequences at this point, a staple of any of Andrew V. McLaglen's war films, but around the halfway mark the action dies down and it turns into a pretty dull movie about prisoners being escorted back to Japan. The climactic mutiny aboard the Japanese freighter and battle between a gunboat and an American submarine is just plain silly.

Chris Penn is totally useless this time around, and the subplot involving him and Denholm Elliott sneaking around behind enemy lines does nothing but distract us from the real story of all the prisoners. Edward Fox and Timothy Bottoms both come across as somewhat underused, but most of the Japanese cast, especially Tatsuya Nakadai (a Kurosawa regular), come off pretty well.

Overall this film comes across little more than an average TV war movie with minor action sequences, some better-than-average photography and special effects, but with a dull and meandering padded storyline. It's pretty dull, but the movie is decent enough to at least warrant some US distribution at some point in time.

Though RETURN FROM THE RIVER KWAI is not exactly terrible, this is a fairly unmemorable dud, and totally useless as a sequel to an undeniably great film.