The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957 In 1943, Saito, the commandant of a Japanese prison camp in Burma, asks British Colonel Nicholson, who has just arrived at the camp, to order his men to build a bridge over the River Kwai. Saito's aim is to use this bridge to give the Japanese troops an advantage in carrying ammunition. The Colonel, who could not stand Saito's torture, accepted his request, thinking that the bridge would be a source of morale for the engineers under his command after a while. Even if Nicholson is a prisoner of his enemy, he thinks that by building a better bridge than he and his men can, he will defeat him on a psychological level. As construction progresses, Nicholson completely forgets that the bridge will give his enemy an advantage, and does his best to perfect it...