Colin Firth: War criminal's son and British 'railway man' bridge war's painful divide By ROGER PULVERS Special to The Japan Times

In September 1943, eight British officers were tortured by their Japanese captors at the prisoner-of-war camp in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. The camp, and a nearby bridge over the Kwai River, were later the setting for director David Lean's multi-Oscar-winning 1957 film "The Bridge on the River Kwai," about the ordeals undergone by tens of thousands of POWs forced to build the Thai-Burma Railway.

One of those officers was Lt. Eric Lomax. Then 24, he was a Signal Corps engineer from Edinburgh who had been captured when Britain's "impregnable fortress" of Singapore fell to the Japanese in February 1942. He was eventually transported to Thailand, where he ended up at the camp in Kanchanaburi.

While at the camp, Lt. Lomax conspired with fellow prisoners to hide a radio. In addition, he drew a map that, if sent to Allied troops fighting the Japanese, could have provided valuable intelligence. The existence of the radio and the map was discovered by the dreaded Kempeitai (Military Police Corps) stationed at the camp.

It is a miracle that he survived the torture, which included hours of beatings, simulated drownings and exposure to the elements. In fact, two fellow officers failed to survive their "interrogations."

A film version of "The Railway Man" is currently in pre-production in England, Thailand and Australia. The character of Lomax as an old man is being played by Colin Firth and, as a young man, by Jeremy Irvine. Rachel Weisz was to play Lomax's wife, Patti, but she was recently replaced by Nicole Kidman.

"(This story) is really like what it means to be home (after the war)," Firth said about "The Railway Man" movie. While the scenes at the camp, with all their horrific impact, and incidents surrounding the building of the Thai-Burma Railway and the infamous bridge over the Kwai River will be recreated in the film, its message is to be one of reconciliation and the unbreakable bond between victim and victimizer.

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