STORY: British actor Colin Firth joined World War Two veterans on the red carpet on Wednesday (December 4) for the UK premiere of "The Railway Man", a story about one man's torture at the hands of the Japanese in building a railway in the Far East.

Firth plays World War Two veteran Eric Lomax, who was captured by the Japanese and spent years as a prisoner of war. Lomax then suffered for decades before finding the strength to forgive his captors, and recounting events in a memoir.

"Speaking at the premiere Firth said, "It's about something very, very, very important which happened to an individual which has implications for thousands of people - people who went through it with their families - and it's not, I don't think, told as broadly as it should be."

The film begins in the later decades of Lomax's life, when he meets and falls in love with his future wife Patti, played by Nicole Kidman. Their marriage was tested by his breakdowns, a legacy of the torture he suff