Image credit Lionsgate.
Spoilers Ahead ─
At the beginning of time the clock struck one-
Then dropped the dew and the clock struck two-
From the dew grew a tree and the clock struck three-
The tree made a door and the clock struck four-
Man came alive and the clock struck five-
Count not, waste not the years on the clock-
Behold I stand at the door and knock.
The above poem is how The Railway Man began and was thought up by the real Eric Lomax as a way to focus his mind and feelings during difficult times in his life. The movie centers on his time during WWII where he served as a second lieutenant in the British Royal Corps of Signals- a unit responsible for setting up battlefield communications and electronic warfare as well as his anguished life afterward.
Eric, played by both Colin Firth (old) and Jeremy Irvine (young), has a love of all things locomotive and meets the love of his life Patricia Wallace (played by Nicole Kidman) while traveling on one to Glasgow. They soon fall in love and get married, however during this time, he undergoes a montage PTSD episodes, which concern his wife, as she has no idea why he has those breakdowns.
She then learns that while serving in Singapore, his unit surrendered to Japanese forces and was taken as prisoners, with years of undergoing brutal torture and forced to work building the Burma Railway. It’s interesting to note that before being taken as a POW, he breaks down his radio equipment and manages to hide a vacuum tube on himself and uses it (along with a collection of other stolen parts) to build a receiver while in a prison camp.
Lomax’s makeshift radio made with smuggled vacuum tube found by the Japanese guards. (image credit Lionsgate)
Eric and some of the other POWs use the radio to get updates on the war, which gives them a boost of morale while enduring the hard labor of building the railroad. Of course, the Japanese eventually find the radio and think that Eric and his comrades are using it to transmit information to the allied forces and begin to torture the men for answers. It’s during this time that Eric meets Japanese secret police officer Takashi Nagase (played by both Hiroyuki Sanada and Tanroh Ishida), who acts as a translator during the brutal questioning and torture sessions.
As you could imagine, those scenes are brutal to watch and made all the more horrific knowing that it happened to the real Eric Lomax and the other POWs. Nagase takes a special interest in Lomax and feels he’s the one who responsible for getting the others to help him build the radio. A detailed map of the areas Lomax has also been found, which only compounds the torture to even more brutal heights and makes it easy to see why Lomax builds a hatred for Nagase.
Lomax questioning Nagase at the memorial decades after being freed. (Image credit Lionsgate)
The POWs are eventually rescued by the Chinese while the British round up the Japanese officers and send them to prison to await trial, however, Nagase escapes persecution by feigning to be a translator, which the British need for various reasons. Decades later and still burning with hatred for what the Japanese did to him, Lomax finds out Nagase is still alive and he sets off to confront his tormentor and get some sort of revenge for his crimes.
He finds Nagase presiding over a Buddhist monastery/WWII memorial in Thailand where the POW camp was once located and proceeds to subject him to mock torture of sorts along the lines of what he went through. Lomax ultimately finds that Nagase is truly remorseful for his actions during the war and is working at the memorial so that what happened there will always be remembered. In the end, the two become friends and meet several times over the years to solidify the forgiveness between the two.
I found The Railway Man to be a great movie that blended the horrors of being a POW with the aftermath of trying to live a normal life. The actors were able to capture and convey those emotions really well and gave life to a story that needed to be told on the big screen (although now it’s on Netflix). I give this movie four out of five stars and recommend seeing it if you already haven’t.
Solid 4.31 out of 5.00