Video: The Railway Man - Full trailer Watch the full the trailer for The Railway Man, a prisoner of war film, based on the bestselling 1995 memoir by Scottish-born Eric Lomax, who recounted his experiences as a British signals officer during the Second World War. At the age of 21, he had been captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore, and along with other British prisoners of war forced to build the Burma Railway The Railway man, starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, is open in cinemas across the UK on January 10.