Told in flashback, Virginia McKenna is an office worker who needs to escape Malaya during WWII as the Japanese close in. She and others are captured and because the Japanese have no facilities for women and children they are required to walk across the country looking for a camp to stay. During their months of hardship walking, McKenna falls in love with Peter Finch who helps them whenever he can.
Remarkably brutal but never explicitly so, this is a moving and at time upsetting drama mixing a wonderful love story with the terrible cruelty of the Japanese. It's very British with much stiff upper lip stuff going in, but it seems real and the story pulls no punches in its depiction of hardships women young and old and their children had to endure. McKenna is fine, but it's the supporting characters that impress the most plus a terrific turn from Finch.
Remarkably brutal but never explicitly so, this is a moving and at time upsetting drama mixing a wonderful love story with the terrible cruelty of the Japanese. It's very British with much stiff upper lip stuff going in, but it seems real and the story pulls no punches in its depiction of hardships women young and old and their children had to endure. McKenna is fine, but it's the supporting characters that impress the most plus a terrific turn from Finch.