Colonel Nicholson (Guinness), a spit-and-polish British officer, endures a humiliating confinement in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the Second World War, and is forced to lead the building of a bridge for the movement of Japanese materiel, a task that slowly begins to consume him, blurring his sense of allegiance. All the while we watch the relationship between him and the formal but civilized camp commandant (Hayakawa) evolve from outright hostility to something close to mutual respect. Ultimately, an American officer (Holden) who knew Nicholson in the camp but has since escaped, is assigned to return and blow up the bridge.