The Painted Veil (12A) English couple rediscover one another in 1920s China, with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

BASED on the classic novel by Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil is a love story set in the 1920s that tells the tale of a young English couple, Walter, a middle class doctor and Kitty, an upper-class woman.

Kitty is a London socialite closing in on an age when a proper lady must find a husband.

Bored with her privileged lifestyle anyway and yearning for escape, she encounters Dr Walter Fane, a quiet, serious bacteriologist and the pair get married for the wrong reasons.

After moving to Shanghai - a city blooming into the centre of popular culture, political intrigue and vice in China - the Fanes venture out into British colonial society, where they are introduced to English Vice Consul Charles Townsend. While Walter dedicates himself to his work, his new wife, Kitty embarks on an adulterous affair with Charlie.

When Fane uncovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by a deadly epidemic, and forces a despondent Kitty to accompany him.

Kitty befriends a neighbour, Deputy Commissioner Waddington (Toby Jones), and the emotional trappings of her former life slowly fall away as she begins to confront the reality of her surroundings.

Amid the human wreckage of the cholera epidemic in one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth, Kitty and Walter discover forgiveness, understanding, even tenderness - and rediscover each other.

Edward Norton, who plays Fane, was determined to enlist Naomi Watts to play Kitty Fane in The Painted Veil. For five years, Norton, screenwriter Ron Nyswaner and producer Sara Colleton had been developing an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 novel, and they were hoping to finally get a film made.

Unfortunately, Watts had just finished a gruelling eight-month shoot in Australia for King Kong and was not eager to begin another film.

"I was tired, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to work again for at least that part of the year," she admits. But after speaking at length with the persuasive Norton, "suddenly my promise to myself about not working went out the window," she laughs. "I always knew this book would make a great film."

Norton, who had studied Chinese history as a Yale undergraduate, was drawn to the project by the complex character of bacteriologist Walter Fane and his mercurial relationship with wife Kitty.

"Walter and Kitty's emotional journey as a couple is compelling in the script, especially how they transcend their own negativity about each other and resuscitate their relationship," he explains. "Walter has to find his way to forgiveness.

"This story really hit all the numbers for me," he adds, "because these are some of the most challenging issues in life."

Watts says she fell in love with the script after her first read. "I thought it was an incredible love story and a wonderful character. Kitty was clearly the first thing that drew me to the story. At first, she just floated by and took whatever came to her. She had no deep inner life and nothing tangible to put herself into. She never really made choices."

Norton, who also acted as a producer on The Painted Veil, confesses: "There were many times in the course of the six years that I've been working on this project that I felt it was never going to happen. It was worth the wait because when it finally clicked, it clicked with the right people. We made a strong collaborative team."