In 1942 the Japanese Imperial Army began construction work on a railway line through the dense jungle between Thailand and Burma. In just 15 months, 26,000 allied PoWs who were forced to labour on the project died from ill treatment, malnutrition and disease. A former prisoner explains that it took many years to be able to come to terms with and understand the experience. But there were other victims of the railway. A quarter of a million Asian labourers were conscripted by the Japanese to work alongside the PoWs. As many as 100,000 of them may have died. One Malaysian recalls: "There were nights when six, seven or even ten people hanged themselves in the latrines." Kwai tells the full story of the "Death Railway", made famous by the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.