After repeated watchings my rating may go up. I love the movie THE THIN RED LINE and this movie reminded me of it strongly except it did not have the excellent cinematography that film did.

I watched it because I like Robert Carlyle a lot and was not disappointed by his performance or any other of the actors on both sides of the war. The pacing was perfect and the violence was very brutal and sometimes unexpected but effective.

The message it delivered to me made the movie for me. Loving thy enemy. Just realizing that we are all just humans caught up in something we didn't start. I highly recommend this movie if you like a film made with compassion.

An intense and moving Concentration Camp picture with a lot of disgusting and violent incidents, based on the true story of Ernest Gordon. Regarding a Japanese Concentration Camp in which prisoners are submitted to severe tortures , punishments and grisly executions by beheading. It is set during WWII taking place at a concentration camp located in Burma where life is brutally harsh . On the Asian mainland , Japanese troops had overrun much of the southeast Asia . They had conquered what is now Malasya and Burma . The British defenders and their allied had retreated north and west into India . The bridge of the River Kwai was placed on the so-called ¨Burma road¨ stretched north from the Burmese , Rangoon , into southern China . It combined a railroad with a winding track through the high mountains near the Chinese border . There had many valuable natural resources , including large large oil fields , and Japan's victory in 1942 cut off the only land route into China from outside. The mountain and jungle of Burma were some of the most demanding environments for fighting in the whole war . Burma and Thailand was strategically valuable , however , it guarded the supply routes to China where were a million Japanese troops, but in such a huge country even that number could not win a decisive victory over the Allied . There are POW's, mainly from a Scottish regiment, they must build part of the enemy's supply railroad trough the ever-inhospitable jungle and working for building a bridge over the River Kwai were a group of war prisoners . A true story about four Allied POWs who endure harsh treatment from their Japanese captors during World War II while being forced to build a railroad throughout the Burmese jungle. Cruel conditions in the concentration camp make life very difficult and the climate also had a significant impact on the prisoners . In war, you have to survive. A True Story About The Will To Survive And The Courage To Forgive . In a jungle war of survival, they learned sacrifice. In a prison of brutal confinement, they found true freedom. The war has ended.. now the slaughter begins !

A moving film about the prolific sub-genre of Concentration Camps with usual ingredients as sadistic commandant , ominous wardens , heinous soldiers carrying out barbaric orders and inmates suffering savage punishments and ultimately they find true freedom by forgiving their enemies . A cruel film dealing with the ruthless , brutal truth about the most barbaric prison camp in the annals of warfare . Being allegedly based on facts , authenticated by the very few who survived the massacre in this terrible camp .The film boasts of a good plethora of British , Japanese and American actors , giving decent acting such as : Ciarán McMenamin , Robert Carlyle, Kiefer Sutherland , Mark Strong, Yûgo Sasô, Sakae Kimura , James Cosmo , Greg Ellis , among others. It belong to a sub-genre about prisoners imprisoned in Japanese concentration camps such as : ¨The Camp of Blood Island¨ (1958) with Michael Goodliffe , Michael Gwynn, Carl Mohner by Val Guest , ¨Bridge on the river Kwai'¨by David Lean with William Holden , Alec Guinnes , Jack Hawkins ,¨Return to River Kwai¨ this film is supposedly the following to classic with Crris Penn, Nick Tate , Timothy Bottoms directed by Andrew McLagen .And this ¨To end All Wars¨ (2001) motion picture was professionally directed by David L. Cunningham.