Page 4 | The narrow road to the deep north

LeaAndDer · 2025-07-20T18:38:19+00:00

Anyone watching? Bbc iPlayer. It’s very hard viewing and at times very sad. What those poor men had to endure at the hands of the Japanese.

MrsLargeEmbodied · 20/08/2025 05:48

i enjoyed that, am glad it ended t hat he forgave ella

MrsLargeEmbodied · 20/08/2025 05:49

i knew vaguely the history but the drawings are a true part of the story, such a wicked race, people say about the Japanese but not much else is said - in fact 80 years since VJ day is the first they have really mentioned VJ day. it is normally not spoken about, compared to VE day

Needtosoundoffandbreathe · 20/08/2025 13:13

The only person I have ever heard called the Japanese "a wicked race" is Bridget Jones's mother! I have known relatives not want to know anything about Japan and the Japanese people or eat anything even vaguely Japanese, i.e. rice, as a result of the experiences of family members during WWII. VJ Day has always been covered in line with VE Day, it's just that the victory in Europe had a far greater impact on the whole of Europe and the fighting in north Africa. It was the end of war in people's daily lives in the UK and meant they could start getting back to normality.

mabelmaura · 21/08/2025 12:56

SwedishEdith · 10/08/2025 22:01

Fucking hell, that was a difficult watch.

Absolutely harrowing..I watched one scene on mute and took my specs off after a few seconds...im still thinking about it..the horrific misery..those poor soldiers..the actors were brilliant..apart from it being absolute misery, I thought it was very very good..I think the book is even worse/ more graphic..I put subtitles on from ep3.

SammyScrounge · 23/08/2025 01:10

Lovewine1975 · 24/07/2025 14:42

I've watched the first two episodes and wow it was hard to watch at times, I cannot get my head around how anyone can be so cruel and brutal, the conditions they were kept in were appalling - I don't know much about the Burma Railway, those poor men suffered so much. Have to say though I'm not a prude but enough with the sex scenes! I'll probably watch the other two episodes tonight.

I felt the sme about the sex scenes. They were overlong and rather boring. All the drama and tension was in the POW scenes. I found the switch to a sex scene nothing more than an irritation.

MrsLargeEmbodied · 23/08/2025 06:11

agree, the sex scenes did seem an irritation, i get they were in love

narniabusiness · 25/08/2025 09:38

Delatron · 15/08/2025 16:26

Thanks @RattyMcBatty that makes more sense. They should have stuck to the version in the book! How do you fake a newspaper clipping? Very confusing.

And what do we think was her reason for not approaching him/finding him? The wife warned her off? So sad she had his child too…

I am going to have to read the book but I did find this so harrowing and sad. Those poor men. My Great Uncle was a Japanese prisoner of war - he refuses to speak a word about what happened.

I finished reading the book yesterday so it’s still fresh in my mind. Ella writes to Dorrigo about the hotel fire in which four people are presumed to have died and says Amy was one of them. (They had to be identified by their teeth). It turns out that Amy wasn’t at the hotel that night but it is hinted in the book may have been directly responsible for the fire. She had just been told by Keith that Dorrigo had died in a prisoner of war camp and had gone off to the beach.
Dorrigo does not look for Amy after the war as he believes she is dead. Amy comes to realise that Dorrigo is alive as he becomes a well known war veteran, but thinks he deliberately didn’t come to find her because he saw her as just a fling. All very poignant.

narniabusiness · 25/08/2025 09:40

And when he sees Amy in the street with the children he assumes she must be happily married and had moved on and forgotten him. She hadn’t.

Delatron · 25/08/2025 09:57

Oh! That’s so sad. But thanks for the clarification- it makes sense now..

Though you would still think that when he saw her in the street (and realised she wasn’t actually dead he would have still gone to speak to her). Even just as an old friend!

SwedishEdith · 25/08/2025 10:04

Oh, that is unbearable. Thanks for the the extra details. I presume her child is his? I can understand them not actually contacting each through crossed wires about the past. But, if it was a real life story, the child would have eventually tried to find their father. I might need to read the book.

Flamingnorahs · 25/08/2025 16:08

narniabusiness · 25/08/2025 09:38

I finished reading the book yesterday so it’s still fresh in my mind. Ella writes to Dorrigo about the hotel fire in which four people are presumed to have died and says Amy was one of them. (They had to be identified by their teeth). It turns out that Amy wasn’t at the hotel that night but it is hinted in the book may have been directly responsible for the fire. She had just been told by Keith that Dorrigo had died in a prisoner of war camp and had gone off to the beach.
Dorrigo does not look for Amy after the war as he believes she is dead. Amy comes to realise that Dorrigo is alive as he becomes a well known war veteran, but thinks he deliberately didn’t come to find her because he saw her as just a fling. All very poignant.

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Thank you for this clarification. Oh my, it just gets sadder and sadder 😢

AnastasiaCrumpet · 25/08/2025 16:21

I think in the book tbe child was Amy's sister's child.

SwedishEdith · 25/08/2025 16:24

The Kindle version is 99p atm.

Figgygal · 08/11/2025 20:26

I've just watched this and needed to comment.
Really didn't enjoy this at all.
I thought of dropping out after episode 2 wish I had.

I didn't think the POW scenes told anything new, couldnt follow who was who either.
Didn't care for any of the characters -
he was a cheat before the war and seemingly repeatedly after it, lettinb down injured veterans to be off shagging his ow Killed all sympathy for me.

It wasn't clear if Amy had died or not but really didn't get their attraction.

Couldn't believe in the casting for older/younger Dorrigo jacob Elordi seems massively taller than Ciaran Hinds.

I wasn't sure sometimes if we were pre or post war at some points and didn't care re: the ending.

Maybe was me

Figgygal · 08/11/2025 20:26

I've just watched this and needed to comment.
Really didn't enjoy this at all.
I thought of dropping out after episode 2 wish I had.

I didn't think the POW scenes told anything new, couldnt follow who was who at times so wasn't invested in them surviving.

Didn't care for any of the characters -
he was a cheat before the war and seemingly repeatedly after it, lettinb down injured veterans to be off shagging his ow Killed all sympathy for me.

It wasn't clear if Amy had died or not but really didn't get their attraction.

Couldn't believe in the casting for older/younger Dorrigo jacob Elordi seems massively taller than Ciaran Hinds.

I wasn't sure sometimes if we were pre or post war at some points and didn't care re: the ending.

Maybe it was me

LittlerCharlotte · 31/01/2026 09:14

Finally watched this and found it utterly devastating. The love between Dorrigo and Amy was breathtaking but the true story is the suffering on the railway. I had to turn the sound off/fast forward those scenes. The men really responsible for the suffering escaped.

Those poor boys were treated worse than animals by their captors. It's hard to get your head round, but important to learn about so their suffering is never forgotten.

Thank you so much for clarifying what happened with the fire though! I couldn't get my head round that at all.