Directed by:
Jonathan TeplitzkyCinematography:
Garry PhillipsComposer:
David HirschfelderCast:
Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jeremy Irvine, Stellan Skarsgård, Sam Reid, Hiroyuki Sanada, James Fraser, Tom Hobbs, Ewen Leslie, Marta Dusseldorp, Peter Tuinstra (more)VOD (1)
Plots(1)
1942. Tens of thousands of brave young soldiers become prisoners of war when Japanese forces overrun Singapore. Churchill calls it "the greatest disaster ever to have befallen the British Empire". Eric Lomax, a 21 year old Signals Engineer and railway enthusiast, is one of the surrendered men. Sent to work on the construction of the notorious Death Railway in Thailand, Eric witnesses unimaginable suffering; men forced to hack through rock and jungle with their bare hands, beaten, starved and prey to tropical diseases. He builds a secret radio to bring hope. As he whispers news of Hitler's defeats or American advances in the Pacific, a thousand backs straighten and exhausted, desperate men resolve to survive another day. When the radio is discovered, Eric faces beatings, interrogation and worse. Barely surviving the war he returns home, like so many others, to a country unable to imagine what he and his colleagues have been through. Haunted by the face of one young Japanese officer, he shuts himself off from the world. And then one day, decades later, he meets a beautiful woman - on a train, of course. She makes him laugh for the first time. They court like teenagers and marry quickly. But on their wedding night Eric's nightmares return; the young Japanese officer dragging him back to the horrors of the past, insisting the war is not over. Patti finds him screaming on the bedroom floor. Humiliated and confused, Eric disappears inside himself again, turning his silent fury on his wife, making her life unbearable. Patti struggles to find out what torments the man she loves. Battling the code of silence that unites the former prisoners of war she persuades the enigmatic Finlay to tell her a shocking secret. The Japanese officer who holds the key to what really happened to her husband is still alive, and Finlay knows where he is. Patti must decide: should Eric, a man desperate for revenge, be given this information? Will she stand by him, whatever he does? (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (3)
It's a pity that the newcomer Jonathan Teplitzky had to learn how to make films on such an interesting topic as WW2. The cast is more than impressive, but the plot is hardly developing and the emotions somehow fail to appear. It takes some time before you start rooting for the refined, low-spoken, elegant and intellectual Colin Firth. There are plenty of things to work with, but they remain unused. The Railway Man wanted to approach Cold Mountain, and others with its form and emotional fatefulness, and failed.
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A very interesting film about the complicated beginning of the British-Japanese friendship. The film’s assets include a strong theme and a good cast. The writing, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired. The theme had a lot more potential, but I still think it is a film worth watching, and I appreciate that the filmmakers didn’t get carried away and turn the film into another Saw sequel. I also liked the smooth transitions between the past and present and the fact that the film focused on the psychological effects of the war rather than the war itself like The Great Raid.
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A film about how difficult it is to come to terms with war. I understand such films, even though I wouldn't need to come to terms with war myself because I would most likely fall very soon due to my incompetence, but in this case, it seems overly dramatic and sometimes purposeless to me. It can be seen that the creators rely on the book, but that's the only thing. It is not well-directed, it is too slow, and even though Colin Firth is great because he can't act otherwise, I still couldn't identify with his hero.
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