What's this war movie called?

Question

I saw this movie once that was set in a war camp (Japanese???) but I can't remember what it was called! There were these men (I think one of them was James Nesbitt) in the camp and they were helping the 'Japanese' to build a train track or something......they were also smuggling books into the camp and teaching eachother stuff secretly. The camp was run by a total p**** and at the end of it they tie up the p**** and beat him up a bit but decide not to kill him....but he manages to get a sword and commit suicide.

I thought it was a really good movie and I'd see it again, if anybody knows what it's called?

Answer 1

The Bridge on the River Kwai...

(I think)

that is the only one I remember about a bridge with train tracks.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050212/

Answer 2

OK, it's NOT David Lean's famous classic "Bridge on the River Kwai," but there are parts of your description that do paralell this wonderful film.  Colonel Saito never commits hari-kari, so that;s right off.  I suspect that you've mixed up two or more movies.  The smuggling and reading was from Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun."  There are also elements of "King Rat" in your description, too.

Answer 3

Bridge over the River Kwai?

Movie, by the way, is not an accurate account of what happened - wrong river, for example.