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Return from the River Kwai is a British 1989 film directed by Andrew McLaglen. It stars Edward Fox, Chris Penn and Timothy Bottoms. The film is based on a 1979 factual book with the same name, about a 1944 Japanese prisoner transport of 2,217 British and Australian POWs, who had been working as forced labour on the Burma Railway, building the famous bridge over the River Kwai. They were taken by railway to Singapore, and from there aboard two ships, Rakuyo Maru and Kachidoki Maru, destined for Japan. On 12 September 1944, both ships were torpedoed by US submarines, and 1,559 of the prisoners perished. When released in the United Kingdom, the film carried a disclaimer that it was not related to or a sequel to the 1957 David Lean film The Bridge on the River Kwai. Nonetheless, due to legal disputes over the title with the US owners of the 1957 film, Return from the River Kwai was never released theatrically in the USA or Canada.