The Narrow Road to the Deep North - BBC

[alpertonian]

A great adaptation of a novel which is a mix of personal relationships/love story and the horrors of being a Japanese POW working on the death railway.

A real quality piece of TV made. All the more personal to me as my Great Uncle died in the Upper Sonkurai camp near the Thai/Burma border in 1943 just before the railway's completion

He is buried in the military cemetery in Burma, and I'm hoping to visit when the political situation improves.

Very hard hitting in places. 5 episodes...all currently on iPlayer

[SS427 Camaro]

Made me sick to my stomach.
Also I fail to see how the criminal who was strung up at the end, wasn’t missing his teeth, etc etc after been held in a military prison by tough Ozzie’s who would know exactly why he was there.

[CooperD]

Watched the first two episodes and have found it very gripping. My father was in the RAF in WW2 and was very disparaging of the Japanese. He wouldn't have anything made in Japan in the house until around 1980. The first Japanese item he bought was an Olympus camera for me for my 17th birthday. He said the Japanese treated the POW's appalingly. Eventually he bought a Sony TV but by that time it was virtually impossible not to buy a TV that wasn't made in Japan.

[SS427 Camaro]

CooperD said:

Watched the first two episodes and have found it very gripping. My father was in the RAF in WW2 and was very disparaging of the Japanese. He wouldn't have anything made in Japan in the house until around 1980. The first Japanese item he bought was an Olympus camera for me for my 17th birthday. He said the Japanese treated the POW's appalingly. Eventually he bought a Sony TV but by that time it was virtually impossible not to buy a TV that wasn't made in Japan.

Totally understand this.
I had the most amazing elderly teacher at junior school. Her name was Mrs. Bagshaw, one day the conversation turned to WW.2 and she revealed that “ Her husband had been a prisoner of the Japs, he went away a young fit man, but when he got home he was a broken man “ the look on her face showed the utter disgust that she had for the Japanese.

[some bloke]

I watched this last week - I thought the 4th & 5th episodes were the most harrowing.

[C69]

I almost gave up after a couple of episodes. I thought that the storytelling was initially all over the place, the audio quality (especially the dialogue) was dire, and the lighting was terrible.

However, I stuck with it until the end, and ultimately I'm glad I did.