Eric Lomax is a British Army officer who is captured by the Japanese during WWII and sent to a POW camp, where he is tortured and forced to work on the Thai-Burma Railway. Years later, and still suffering from the psychological trauma, Lomax is persuaded by his wife Patti to find and confront one of his captors. Lomax returns to the scene of his torture and manages to track down his captor from the prison camp in an attempt to let go of a lifetime...