Return from the River Kwai **½ (1989, Edward Fox, Chris Penn, Denholm Elliott, Timothy Bottoms, George Takei) – Classic Movie Review 11,655

Director Andrew V McLaglen’s 1989 film Return from the River Kwai tells the true story about the Japanese (Tutsuya Nakadai, George Takei) escorting a POW battalion of true Brits (Edward Fox, Denholm Elliott) and Aussies (Nick Tate, Timothy Bottoms) from occupied Thailand, where they had been working as forced labour on the Burma Railway, building the bridge over the River Kwai, to Japan in 1944.

They were taken by railway to Singapore, and from there aboard two ships headed for Japan. On 12 September 1944, the ships Rakuyo Maru and Kachidoki Maru were torpedoed by US submarines, and 1,559 prisoners died.

Return from the River Kwai is a good, solid, old-style action adventure story that eschews any frills, with sterling star acting, though some of the other performances, the dialogue (screenplay by Sargon Tamimi and Paul Mayersberg) and the photography (Arthur Wooster) are all pretty ordinary.

The stars and the story apart, the film’s good heart and honest intentions are its main attractions. And Lalo Schifrin’s score is an asset.

It has no relation to any other film with a similar title, ie it is not a sequel to The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Producer Kurt Unger said: ‘It is a story that stands completely on its own, and it is a factual story. The event is not known in America. It is known in the Pentagon, but not by the general public.’

The words ‘River Kwai’ are not mentioned in the film and the river only appears at the beginning, with the story about what happened to the POWS after the railway was built.

The film is based on a 1979 factual book with the same name by Joan Blair and Clay Blair Jr about a 1944 Japanese prisoner transport of 2,217 British and Australian POWs,

In 1998, after a long legal dispute, a court ruled that the title suggested the film implied it was a sequel to The Bridge on the River Kwai and it was never released in the US. Producer Kurt Unger said the decision cost him a minimum of $5 million in lost earnings, and, though the film took $5 million outside the US, it was unprofitable as it cost $15 million.

The film was shot in 1988 in the Philippines, where Unger said ’80 per cent of what we needed was already here. The other 20 per cent we built ourselves, and we built our own studio in a warehouse in the suburbs.’

The main cast are Edward Fox as Major Benford, Chris Penn as Lieutenant Crawford, Denholm Elliott as Colonel Grayson, Timothy Bottoms as Seaman Miller, Tatsuya Nakadai as Major Harada, George Takei as Lieutenant Tanaka, Nick Tate as Lt Commander Hunt, Michael Dante as Commander Davidson.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,655

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