Constantine Phaulkon
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2011
Hollywood coming to the River Kwai, Thailand "Based on a true(-ish) story". The putative bridge was 5 km from this Thai town: 14° 1? 10? N, 99° 31? 52? E Kanchanaburi. Note the Thais renamed the river for the tourists! Tourists are always spoiled--if they bring money.
Nicole Kidman says she'll be out and about sampling Thai food--I'm sure if she comes to Rider's Corner in CNX she'd get a free meal and all the beer, wine and spirits she cares to drink! Good that she doesn't have an eating disorder like most Hollywood actresses.
CP
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-17870048
27 April 2012 Last updated at 08:59 ET
Colin Firth 'overwhelmed' by Scot's film story
Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman at a press conference in Edinburgh
Actor Colin Firth has said he felt "a little overwhelmed" by the enormity of the story to be told in his latest film The Railway Man.
Shooting for the movie begins in Scotland on Monday.
The Oscar winner plays Eric Lomax, a Scot haunted by memories of being a prisoner forced to work on the construction of the Thai/Burma railway during World War II.
Filming will take place in locations including Edinburgh and North Berwick.
The cast and crew will later move to Thailand and Queensland, Australia.
Actress Nicole Kidman plays the role of Patti who tries to help Lomax.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
I've heard there's some great restaurants, so I will be out and about”
Nicole Kidman Actress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_over_the_river_kwai
The Bridge over the River Kwai
The Bridge over the River Kwai (French: Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai) is a novel by Pierre Boulle, published in French in 1952 and English translation by Xan Fielding in 1954. The story is fictional but uses the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942–43, as its historical setting. The novel deals with the plight of World War II British prisoners of war forced by the Imperial Japanese Army to build a bridge for the "Death Railway", so named because of the large number of prisoners and conscripts who died during its construction. The novel won France's Prix Sainte-Beuve in 1952.
Historical context
The largely fictitious plot is based on the building in 1943 of one of the railway bridges over the Mae Klong—renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s—at a place called Tha Ma Kham, five kilometers from the Thai town of Kanchanaburi.
According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:[1]
"The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre."
Boulle had been a prisoner of the Japanese in Southeast Asia and his story of collaboration was based on his experience with some French officers. However, he chose instead to use British officers in his book.
Historical accuracy
The incidents portrayed in the book are mostly fictional, and though it depicts bad conditions and suffering caused by the building of the Burma Railway and its bridges, the reality was appalling. Historically the conditions were much worse.[2] The real senior Allied officer at the bridge was British Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey. On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel; and if he had, he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners. Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Pierre Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers.[3]
Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. Toosey in fact did as much to delay the building of the bridge as possible. Whereas Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: white ants were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed.[3][4]
The bridge described in the book doesn't actually cross the River Kwai. Pierre Boulle had never been to the bridge. He knew that the 'death railway' ran parallel to the River Kwae for many miles, and he therefore assumed that it was the Kwae which it crossed just North of Kanchanaburi. This was an incorrect assumption; the bridge actually crosses the Mae Klong river.
When David Lean's film The Bridge on the River Kwai was released, the Thais faced a problem. Thousands of tourists came to see the bridge over the River Kwai, but no such bridge existed. However, there did exist a bridge over the Mae Klong. So, to resolve the problem, they renamed the river. The Mae Klong is now called the Kwae Yai ('Big Kwae') for several miles north of the confluence with the Kwae Noi ('Little Kwae'), including the bit under the bridge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanchanaburi
Nicole Kidman says she'll be out and about sampling Thai food--I'm sure if she comes to Rider's Corner in CNX she'd get a free meal and all the beer, wine and spirits she cares to drink! Good that she doesn't have an eating disorder like most Hollywood actresses.
CP
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-17870048
27 April 2012 Last updated at 08:59 ET
Colin Firth 'overwhelmed' by Scot's film story
Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman at a press conference in Edinburgh
Actor Colin Firth has said he felt "a little overwhelmed" by the enormity of the story to be told in his latest film The Railway Man.
Shooting for the movie begins in Scotland on Monday.
The Oscar winner plays Eric Lomax, a Scot haunted by memories of being a prisoner forced to work on the construction of the Thai/Burma railway during World War II.
Filming will take place in locations including Edinburgh and North Berwick.
The cast and crew will later move to Thailand and Queensland, Australia.
Actress Nicole Kidman plays the role of Patti who tries to help Lomax.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
I've heard there's some great restaurants, so I will be out and about”
Nicole Kidman Actress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_over_the_river_kwai
The Bridge over the River Kwai
The Bridge over the River Kwai (French: Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai) is a novel by Pierre Boulle, published in French in 1952 and English translation by Xan Fielding in 1954. The story is fictional but uses the construction of the Burma Railway, in 1942–43, as its historical setting. The novel deals with the plight of World War II British prisoners of war forced by the Imperial Japanese Army to build a bridge for the "Death Railway", so named because of the large number of prisoners and conscripts who died during its construction. The novel won France's Prix Sainte-Beuve in 1952.
Historical context
The largely fictitious plot is based on the building in 1943 of one of the railway bridges over the Mae Klong—renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s—at a place called Tha Ma Kham, five kilometers from the Thai town of Kanchanaburi.
According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:[1]
"The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre."
Boulle had been a prisoner of the Japanese in Southeast Asia and his story of collaboration was based on his experience with some French officers. However, he chose instead to use British officers in his book.
Historical accuracy
The incidents portrayed in the book are mostly fictional, and though it depicts bad conditions and suffering caused by the building of the Burma Railway and its bridges, the reality was appalling. Historically the conditions were much worse.[2] The real senior Allied officer at the bridge was British Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey. On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel; and if he had, he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners. Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Pierre Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers.[3]
Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. Toosey in fact did as much to delay the building of the bridge as possible. Whereas Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: white ants were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed.[3][4]
The bridge described in the book doesn't actually cross the River Kwai. Pierre Boulle had never been to the bridge. He knew that the 'death railway' ran parallel to the River Kwae for many miles, and he therefore assumed that it was the Kwae which it crossed just North of Kanchanaburi. This was an incorrect assumption; the bridge actually crosses the Mae Klong river.
When David Lean's film The Bridge on the River Kwai was released, the Thais faced a problem. Thousands of tourists came to see the bridge over the River Kwai, but no such bridge existed. However, there did exist a bridge over the Mae Klong. So, to resolve the problem, they renamed the river. The Mae Klong is now called the Kwae Yai ('Big Kwae') for several miles north of the confluence with the Kwae Noi ('Little Kwae'), including the bit under the bridge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanchanaburi
