UHD Review The Bridge on the River Kwai 65th Anniversary Steelbook UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Todd Erwin]

For its 65th anniversary, Sony has re-issued the 1957 classic The Bridge on the River Kwai with a slightly upgraded transfer on 4K UHD Blu-ray.



The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)



Released: 14 Dec 1957
Rated: PG
Runtime: 161 min




Director: David Lean
Genre: Adventure, Drama, War



Cast: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins
Writer(s): Pierre Boulle, Carl Foreman, Michael Wilson



Plot: British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.



IMDB rating: 8.2
MetaScore: 87





Disc Information



Studio: Sony
Distributed By: N/A
Video...

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[Robin9]

I saw this film in the late 1950s when I was about 12 years old. I loved it then and I love it now although advancing years enable me to see the film quite differently. Having seen the film when it was new, I'm willing to pay a bit extra to have the original mono soundtrack.

 

[Malcolm Bmoor]

I don't understand the contradiction between avidly discussing all possible improvements to picture quality and then insisting on an original mono soundtrack when efforts have been made to improve that too using modern facilities.

Bearing in mind that many films are completed against the clock and budget there's obviously a story to be told as to why KWAI wasn't presented in the usual Four Track available for prestige productions. Time and budget?

I'm grateful when films are revisited for refinements not possible at the time, assuming that these refinements are not detrimental, such as excessive and obviously damaging noise reduction.

I'm guessing (without evidence) that the mono version is derived from a Mag Master and far better than was heard on the optical prints of the time. Is this acceptable or would you prefer the truly authentic optical distortion?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I don't understand the contradiction between avidly discussing all possible improvements to picture quality and then insisting on an original mono soundtrack when efforts have been made to improve that too using modern facilities.

Bearing in mind that many films are completed against the clock and budget there's obviously a story to be told as to why KWAI wasn't presented in the usual Four Track available for prestige productions. Time and budget?

I'm grateful when films are revisited for refinements not possible at the time, assuming that these refinements are not detrimental, such as excessive and obviously damaging noise reduction.

I'm guessing (without evidence) that the mono version is derived from a Mag Master and far better than was heard on the optical prints of the time. Is this acceptable or would you prefer the truly authentic optical distortion?

Hell, there are so many contradictions in life that I couldn't even list them all.

 

[Douglas R]

Deleted - error.

 

[Robert Harris]

I don't understand the contradiction between avidly discussing all possible improvements to picture quality and then insisting on an original mono soundtrack when efforts have been made to improve that too using modern facilities.

Bearing in mind that many films are completed against the clock and budget there's obviously a story to be told as to why KWAI wasn't presented in the usual Four Track available for prestige productions. Time and budget?

I'm grateful when films are revisited for refinements not possible at the time, assuming that these refinements are not detrimental, such as excessive and obviously damaging noise reduction.

I'm guessing (without evidence) that the mono version is derived from a Mag Master and far better than was heard on the optical prints of the time. Is this acceptable or would you prefer the truly authentic optical distortion?

All of the original mag stems survive, as at least did when I inventoried the in May of 1989.

 

[Howardsternisbatman]

Great film. Already have it in 4K. Will pass on this.

 

[Nelson Au]

I watched the new 4k steel book version of The Bridge on the River Kwai last night. I’m continuing a trend of watching the new 4K or best blu rays of the major epic films from the 1950’s and 1960’s. So I’m carrying on after viewing Lawrence of Arabia last weekend. I have not seen The Bridge on the River Kwai on the earlier blu ray, though I own it. The last time I saw this film was probably as a pre-teen or young teen on TV. I mainly remember Alec Guinness fighting the Japanese camp leader on principle and then leading the building of the bridge. And then his realization later. i had not recalled how William Holden’s character plays into the plot. I’m kind of surprised to see Jack Hawkins show up in so many titles I’ve been watching recently too!

So like Lawrence last week, this was like seeing the film for the first time. I could not appreciate the tension the film was building towards as a kid. So I really enjoyed this viewing even at this length. I’m neutral on William Holden, he’s a good actor and he plays his characters well. I do find as has been written that his characters tended to be cynical and I could feel that here.

I also don’t know all of David Lean’s films. But the two war films I have just seen do portray the lead characters as all going a little mad during the course of the narrative. I can see war does make soldiers go a little crazy.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when seeing this film on 4K UHD as I have not seen it so long. I was very impressed with how Lawrence looked on 4K. I didn’t expect it to look like a new movie. So as the movie started, I was a little surprised by the quality of the image. I suspect it always looked the way it does as the aerial images of the jungle was kind of dull. Looking a bit soft and the color being a bit muted. But as the film got going it looked great! I do intend to play the 2010 blu ray and compare the image. Same with Lawrence. ( I have been noticing that a lot of good blu rays do look quite good and even great on my calibrated OLED. )

Audiowise, I played the default multichannel track. It worked for me to put me into the jungle with all the sounds of nature surround the camp.

Not sure which epic to watch next!

 

[Robert Crawford]

A lot of opticals with this film! This is definitely the best it will ever look.

 

[roxy1927]

Have never seen this movie and unless it has a theatrical release probably never will. I can't bear seeing these movies for the first time on TV. So much is lost. I held out for both versions of Ben Hur, El Cid, Cleopatra, Spartacus, Lawrence, Ryan's Daughter and Barabbas and my patience was rewarded. I'm afraid at this point Kwai is not going to happen. Yes I'm kind of fanatical. It's a spiritual and religious thing.

 

[jayembee]

I don't understand the contradiction between avidly discussing all possible improvements to picture quality and then insisting on an original mono soundtrack when efforts have been made to improve that too using modern facilities.

It's not a matter of discussing "all possible improvements" to picture quality, but presenting the picture as close as possible to what it was in its original release. Same with the sound. Purists want the sound to be faithful to the original presentation as possible. I will deserve to be corrected by RAH on this if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, Kwai was released with 6-track sound for the 70mm prints and mono sound for the 35mm prints. Those used to the latter might prefer to hear it that way.

To use an alternate example, take Jaws. It's original release was in Mono. And the film won Oscars for both its sound and its score. So while some folks might prefer multi-channel sound on their home video presentations, others want the original award-winning Monaural.

Some people view changing a mono soundtrack to a multi-channel soundtrack to be the same as adding color to a black & white movie.

 

[Nelson Au]

A lot of opticals with this film! This is definitely the best it will ever look.

Hi Robert, The Bridge on the River Kwai had a lot of opticals?

 

[Todd Erwin]

Hi Robert, The Bridge on the River Kwai had a lot of opticals?

Opticals would be anytime there is a fade or dissolve, or credits over live action.

 

[Nelson Au]

Todd, you’re right. I was so into the story, I wasn't paying attention to fades or dissolves. I usually can see the slight image quality drop when there are dissolves and I wasn't noticing it.

 

[Malcolm Bmoor]

It's not a matter of discussing "all possible improvements" to picture quality, but presenting the picture as close as possible to what it was in its original release.

I'm certain that this is a fruitless argument but find it odd that you don't embrace the idea of improving upon one's efforts.

Before I worked in tv sound as a dubbing mixer I was a theatre musicals operator and during eight performances each week was always attempting to improve the quality of what I was doing. As a production bedded in during its run everything about it would develop, including the sound, whether by changing equipment or simply by operating it better.

As a dubbing mixer, working against the clock, I actively feared the final playback when it was officially finished and couldn't be altered. There would always be things I wanted to do again. As technology improved and progressed from synchronised sixteen track analogue to a digital work station I was grateful for the opportunity to work faster and with more control. I would have loved to remake programmes from my past and dare to venture that a dubbing mixer from the 1950s, working with the technology of the time, would have been equally enthusiastic to revisit and improve his result when it became possible. I can't agree that he would have discarded the chance of a 5.1 digital remix for his original mono optical.

The working process is about continual improvement, from retakes during production to remixing a scene until everybody is satisfied.

I fail to understand the holy reverence for presenting the picture as close as possible to what it was in its original release when it could be presented better.

We know that many Blu-rays of elderly Technicolor films have gloriously benefited from the present ability to recombine the three elements to produce greatly improved versions. I'm overwhelmed by the sheer splendour of the result.

 

[jayembee]

I'm certain that this is a fruitless argument but find it odd that you don't embrace the idea of improving upon one's efforts.

Before I worked in tv sound as a dubbing mixer I was a theatre musicals operator and during eight performances each week was always attempting to improve the quality of what I was doing. As a production bedded in during its run everything about it would develop, including the sound, whether by changing equipment or simply by operating it better.

Who said I didn't "embrace the idea of improving upon one's efforts"? What you're talking about is you nudging here and tweaking there to improve your own work. There's nothing wrong with that.

What I'm talking about is people today making alterations in someone else's work, and turning it into something that it wasn't intended to be. Doing that is disrespectful of the work the original artists had done.

One example of this was the blu-ray edition of The French Connection. For its initial edition, director William Friedkin supervised a regrading of the film that desaturated the color. According to Friedkin, it was what he'd originally wanted to do. But it wasn't the same as what the original color timing presented, which pissed a lot of people off, including the film's cinematographer. So a later edition, supervised by the DP, restored the original timing.

Now, Friedkin may have thought that the desaturation "improved" the film and made it "better", but he was apparently the only person on Planet Earth that felt that way. Me, I thought it was an interesting difference that had its good points, and could understand why Friedkin thought it was an improvement, but I was used to the original timing, and prefer that. At best, Friedkin's regrading is an interesting "alternate version", but it wasn't an improvement.

I fail to understand the holy reverence for presenting the picture as close as possible to what it was in its original release when it could be presented better.

But who gets to decide what's "better"? Just because one person thinks it's better doesn't mean that everyone else is going to agree. Some people thinking scrubbing grain from a picture makes it "better". Those who feel the grain is part and parcel of the proper look of film disagree. Some people think that black-&-white photography isn't good enough anymore, and want color added to make it "better". Some people want the aspect ratio changed, because they think that filling the entire TV screen makes it "better".

We know that many Blu-rays of elderly Technicolor films have gloriously benefited from the present ability to recombine the three elements to produce greatly improved versions. I'm overwhelmed by the sheer splendour of the result.

Yes, they are greatly improved, but not beyond what the films originally looked like. What's being done with current technology is taking film that has faded and been damaged and restoring it to what it looked like when first released. There's nothing wrong with that.

Let's try this...the original Star Trek TV show was made in the mid-60s. It was made for transmission to a 4x3 cathode-ray tube with a single speaker. For decades, that is the way people watched it: the way it was intended to be. When home video came around, it was put on VHS and Beta and laserdisc just as it had been seen for years. But the sources they used were faded, with scratches and dirt and whatnot.

When Paramount brought it to DVD, they did some picture restoration to try to eliminate the problems that came with age. No problem there. But they also had audio technicians take the original monaural soundtrack and introduce separations to produce a surround mix. Aside from the fact that I thought it was a terrible job they did on that, the problem was that Paramount apparently decided that now that the episodes had a nice, new, improved, lemon-freshened 5.1 audio, there was no need to include the original mono. Because after all, why would one want to listen to plain old mono when they could listen to 5.1? But what that meant is that they had changed the work. Some may have thought it was improved or made better, but nonetheless, it wasn't the same sound as what the audio engineers had created in the first place.

Now, apparently, Paramount had learned after that. By the time the show was restored (again) and remastered in HD for blu-ray, they still included the multi-channel sound mix (actually a newer one, in 7.1), but this time they also included the original mono mix. On the other hand, they still weren't adverse to trying to "improve" things by creating new "enhanced" visual effects. Which again, alters the work, and makes it something it wasn't before. But at least, like the audio, they gave viewers the option to watch the episodes with the original effects or with the "enhanced" effects.

Those of us who watched the show back in the 60s, and for years after in syndication and home video embraced the idea of being able to watch it as it had been created in the first place.

And bringing this back around to The Bridge on the River Kwai, what started this tangent was the comment wondering why people were happy that the original mono audio was included on this release when it hadn't been on previous releases. And my response is that people wanted to hear it as audiences heard it in 1957. And sure, the 70mm release had 6-channel audio, so that's also "correct", but the vast bulk of audiences (which no doubt included some of the people here who are happy with the inclusion of the mono track) experienced it in 1957 with monaural audio, because 35mm prints were far more common than 70mm prints.

Now, maybe most people -- even some of those to want to have the mono track -- will choose to watch this release with the Dolby Atmos track, the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track, or the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track rather than the Mono track. But the important thing is that we get that choice. A choice we didn't have in the previous release.