Speaking as a Japanese, "The Railway Man" is extremely difficult to sit through, as it deals with the treatment of British POWs by the Japanese Army after they took Singapore during World War II.
Actually, contemplating even a fragment of the events that unfolded in Southeast Asia during that war weighs so heavily on the brain it's easier to just stop thinking at all. But "The Railway Man" is a story that must be told and we in turn must bear the viewing experience, if only to confirm the lasting impact of war on the individual.
Directed by Australia's Jonathan Teplitzky, "The Railway Man" chronicles the encounter of two men who wind up facing each other across an interrogation table. On one side is 21-year-old Eric Lomax (excellently portrayed by Jeremy Irvine), a British Royal Signals Officer taken as a POW along with thousands of others by the victorious Japanese Army. On the other side is Takashi Nagase (Tanroh Ishida), a military interpreter and former student at Aoyama Gakuin University. Nagase's job is to issue orders on behalf of his superiors. Lomax's job is to work on the Thailand-Burma railway.
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