Hannibal Rising
Tags: boring, murder, violence, revenge, flashback, romantic

Plot synopsis:
In 1944, Lecter is eight years old, living in Lecter Castle; constructed by his paternal ancestor, Hannibal the Grim, in the Lithuanian countryside. Lecter, his younger sister, Mischa, and his parents escape to the family's hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. Back at Lecter Castle, six Lithuanian militiamen (Grutas, Dortlich, Grentz, Kolnas, Milko, and Pot Watcher) request to join the Waffen-SS. The SS commander orders them to kill the Lecters' Jewish cook who was left behind, to which they gleefully comply.A Soviet tank stops at the Lecters' lodge looking for water, and forces everyone out of the house. However, the tank is then spotted by a German Stuka bomber, which sparks a firefight. The bomber is shot down by the tank, but subsequently crashes into it and the ensuing explosion kills everyone, except Hannibal and Mischa.
The SS militiamen then loot Lecter Castle. Seeing their wounded SS commander, Grutas shoots him and takes his Iron Cross. However, the impending Russian advance forces them to hide out in the woods where they locate the Lecter lodge. The SS militiamen storm and take over the lodge. Finding no other food in the bitterly cold Baltic winter, the men look menacingly at Hannibal and Mischa.The movie then cuts to a scene eight years later inside Lecter Castle, which has been turned into a Soviet-run orphanage. A bully harasses Lecter, who has been rendered mute by his experiences, about not singing the orphanage anthem. The bully attacks his head, but Lecter blocks his swing with a fork, impaling the bully's hand. That evening, Lecter experiences a flashback about Mischa screaming in his sleep, which angers the youth commander, who locks him in a dungeon. However, Lecter escapes from the castle orphanage to Paris to live with his widowed aunt, the Lady Murasaki-Lecter. She gets him to speak for the first time since his childhood, and instructs him about flower arrangement, martial arts and ancestor worship.At a local market, a butcher makes a crude and racist remark about Lady Murasaki. Lecter then attacks him. Later, while the butcher is fishing, Lecter requests an apology from him, and is denied. He then slices the butcher's stomach, arm and back with a katana, then decapitates him. Later that evening, the family cook tells Lecter that the most delicious part of the fish he took from the butcher is the cheeks and helps develop Lecter's signature style of biting his victims cheeks. That same evening, he is suspected of the butcher's murder by Inspector Popil, a French detective who had also lost his family to the war. Thanks in great part to the intervention of his aunt, who places the butcher's disembodied head outside police headquarters while Hannibal is being interrogated inside, Lecter escapes responsibility for the crime.Eventually, Lecter becomes the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. He receives a working scholarship, where he is given a job preparing cadavers. One day, Lecter witnesses a condemned war criminal receiving a sodium thiopental injection to force him to recall details about his war crimes. In an attempt to recall the names of those responsible for his sister's death, Lecter injects himself with the solution while listening to Glenn Gould's recording of the Goldberg Variations. The same music is also heard in Silence of the Lambs. His subsequent flashback reveals that Pot Watcher had the dogtags of the other deserters when he was killed as the Russians bombed the lodge. The dogtags should still be in the ruins of the lodge.Lecter then returns to Lithuania in search of the dogtags, as well as his sister's remains. While crossing the Soviet border, he draws the attention of Dortlich, who is now a Soviet border patrol officer. Lecter excavates the ruins of the lodge where his family died, and also unearths the dogtags of the group of deserters who had killed his sister. Dortlich attempts to kill him, but Lecter gets the upper hand and incapacitates him. After he buries Mischa's remains, Lecter ties Dortlich to a tree and forces him to reveal the whereabouts of the rest of his gang. When he refuses to reveal enough details, Lecter decapitates Dortlich with a horse-drawn pulley. Dortlich's blood splashes on Lecter's face and he wipes it off and licks it. Later, the Soviet police arrive on the scene, only to discover Dortlich's head, with its cheeks carved off, apparently made into a brochette.Lecter then visits Kolnas' restaurant in Fontainebleau. He finds Kolnas' young daughter, whom he notices is wearing Mischa's bracelet. He then gives Kolnas' dogtag to her. Kolnas enters the restaurant, but Lady Murasaki persuades Lecter not to kill him, for the sake of Kolnas' children. Dortlich's murder, along with Kolnas' dogtag, puts the rest of the group in alert. Grutas, now a sex trafficker, dispatches a second member of the group, Zigmas Milko, to kill Lecter. Milko sneaks into Lecter's laboratory at night with a gun, but Lecter senses his presence and knocks him out with an injection. Just as Police Inspector Popil is entering the lab, Lecter locks Milko in the cadaver tank and leaves him to drown in the embalming fluid. Popil questions Lecter about Dortlich's murder, but is again unable to establish Lecter's guilt. Popil then tries to dissuade him from hunting the gang, and offers to let him go free if he helps locate Grutas. After Lecter leaves, Popil remarks to his assistant that Lecter lost all of his humanity when Mischa died, and has become a monster.Lady Murasaki begs Lecter not to complete his revenge, but Lecter says that he made a promise to Mischa. Lecter then sets up a time bomb in Grutas' home, and attacks him in the bath. However, a maid alerts Grutas' bodyguards, who then rush in. Just as Grutas' bodyguards are about to slit his throat, Lecter's time bomb goes off and he escapes.Grutas kidnaps Lady Murasaki and calls Lecter, using her as bait. Lecter recognizes the sounds of Kolnas' ortolans from his restaurant in the background. Lecter goes there and plays on Kolnas' emotions by threatening his children, forcing him to give up the location of Grutas' boat. Lecter then says he will leave Kolnas alone for the sake of his family, and places his gun on the hot stove. As Kolnas goes for the gun, Lecter impales him through the head with his Tant. He then hides the Tant behind his back.Lecter goes to the houseboat. Just as he is about to untie Lady Murasaki, Grutas shoots him in the back. Grutas then proceeds to molest Lady Murasaki. Lecter takes out the Tant, which was broken by the force of the bullet, and slashes Grutas's Achilles' tendons with it, crippling him. In a final confrontation, Grutas claims that Lecter too had consumed his sister in broth fed to him by the deserters, and he was killing them to keep this fact secret. Enraged, Lecter carves his sister's initial, M, into Grutas's chest. Lady Murasaki, disturbed by his behavior, flees from him even after he tells her that he loves her. As she leaves, Hannibal bites off Grutas's cheeks in what will become his signature attack. The houseboat is then incinerated, but Lecter, assumed to be dead, emerges from the woods. The film then concludes with Lecter hunting down the last member of the group, Grentz, in Canada, and after killing him, moves to America, thus beginning his killings in the country. There are a number of years between the end of this film and the beginning of the events in Manhunter/Red Dragon.

Review: I don't know if any of these people have read any of the books, let alone Hannibal Rising, but I loved the movie.
Ulliel looked very menacing as the anti-hero Lecter but charming at times as well, just as Hannibal should be and he is backed up by a strong supporting cast (Rhys Ifans in particular).There are nice references to The Silence of the Lambs the Samurai's face mask that Hannibal tries on resembling the mask worn in SOTL and the music that he listens to in his room at the medical school which is the same as he has playing in his cell in Baltimore.I was hooked from start to finish and would recommend this film to anyone..
It has absolutely no self-distance, the kind of spark in the eye of Anthony Hopkins, or any form of a sense of humour.Onto casting, Gaspard Ulliel is clearly not a bad performer, nor is anyone's acting truly the root of the film's problems.
this movie is about how Hannibal got STARTED, there is no Anthony Hopkins, no other serial killers, NOTHING that makes it like the other 3 movies (yes I know there are 4 but I don't want to see Brian Cox as Lecter) so why would you go in and expect it to be like them.
so seriously, if you are going to go see this movie, expect a good story, some pretty good acting from most of the people involved, a few bloody scenes, and a very disturbing beginning to the life of Lecter.if you go in expecting anything else, you are just wasting your time..
I went and seen Hannibal Rising last night and have to say that even though it was not as good as the novel i still highly recommend this movie, the acting is pretty good given they are not your high profile Hollywood stars and Gaspard Ulliel play a wonderful Hannibal Lecter.The scenery is beautiful, the war scenes are very well shot and the acting throughout the movie is well above what i expected especially from the little known french actor playing the famous cannibal.Don't go see this movie expecting a similar style of film like the others in the Saga, just go and enjoy the movie and marvel as you see what sort of monster a human being is capable of becoming.Overall i think the movie holds enough of its own to be a very worthy addition to the "Hannibal" franchise.Fans of the book will probably find the movie more absorbing than those who haven't read it.
I'm a big fan of the whole Lecter story, have read all the books, of which I thought "Hannibal Rising" was an OK (although not great) final installment.The film is, quite simply, rubbish.
Hannibal Lecter is surely one of the most intriguing characters ever, yet this movie, which captures his "beginning" story (always the biggest opportunities for a great film story) falls completely flat.The acting is mediocre at best (awful stereotypical English-with-a-cheesy-foreign-accent stuff), the dialogue is cliché-ridden, stilted and unconvincing, the timing/editing is abysmal, the cinematography provides little in the way of drama, the climax is, admittedly, slightly better, but the ending is near-pointless and feels tacked-on.Don't bother watching this movie, it does little to further the Lecter anthology..
Gaspard Ulliel has always been a brilliant actor, and this film only added to his successful career achievements.The plot summary took on an angle of Hannibal Lecter never discussed, and certainly never shown in film, that being his early developmental years.
Titanic was awful - but at least it had a sort of drunken, mawkish grace to it -Hannibal disappears up its own ass from about twenty or so minutes into the film and you cannot believe that Thomas Harris actually ahem...*cannibalised* his own book to come up with a thin gruel of a film, something that makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like a true masterpiece.
Only one little bit (the 'art' shot) where Hannibal as a little boy is stumbling through the snow has any effect whatsoever.Honestly when you watch it - you will think two things all of the way through the film.1: It should have been called Carry On Lecter: Don't Lose Your Head2:When did Lecter turn into David Copperfield?
In all of the films to date you would have noticed how "with it" Hannibal is but young lecter is too weird, i don't like him where as you kinda grew fond of Hannibal portrayed by anthony hopkins, this isn't in anyway silence of the lambs, red dragon or Hannibal this is just poo!!!
Peter Webber, director of Girl with a Pearl Earring takes a bite (no pun intended) into one of the most villainous and ferocious masterminds of contemporary cinema, Hannibal Lecter.The film is a prequel to Oscar winner, The Silence of the Lambs and the unknown Manhunter which is also a prequel to the Oscar winner.
Nothing compares to the atrocity played here by Gaspard Ulliel known for his lukewarm portrayal as the vanished soldier in A Very Long Engagement.The film starts with Young Hannibal in his formative years during World War II and his transformation, if that's even the word, into a brutal serial cannibal killer.
He includes the most horrible love story which has no way of enchanting any couple and includes a few chase scenes and terrible stipulation of who and what Hannibal Lecter truly is.Ulliel cannot grasp the character rather attempts a Anthony Hopkins impression and seemingly fails on many levels to bring a new Hannibal to life.
In fact, demystifying the killer makes him a little less scary, which surely can't be a good thing for a horror film.The movie begins in war torn Lithuania, where a young Hannibal is forced to care for his sister Mischa after their parents are killed.
However, when a band of unwelcome hungry war criminals decide to sit out the harsh winter in Hannibal's home, Hannibal finds he no longer needs to care for his siblingbecause the nasty men use her as the main ingredient in a delicious and warming stew.Eight years later, a grown-up Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) is living with his tasty Japanese aunt Murasaki Shikibu (Gong Li) in France, when the opportunity arises for him to get even with the men who ate little Mischa.The first half of the film is awfully dulla dreary biopic showing how the boy came to be all alone and emotionally damaged.
Given that it won't have much appeal to a new audience, that makes it a pretty big failure.We already know some of the story of his past from the books, so the movie should have focused on how the fantastic character of Hannibal Lecter came to be.
Instead it takes the only big thing that we *already knew*, and builds a completely random story of war-crimes and revenge around it, involving a character named Hannibal Lecter, but whose behaviour and motives bear no resemblance at all to the character we know.
That he is a little style-less and impulsive is annoying but could potentially be explained away, but the Hannibal in this movie is passionate and troubled, not especially cultured, and shows no calm or of that great sense of irony.Some aspects of the character are covered in a weak attempt to tie it in - like that he can defeat a lie detector or tell things about people - but they're really blunt, poorly executed, don't lead on to anything, and have no explanation!
Thanks to the meticulously of Jonathan Demme and presence of Anthony Hopkins, who invented the narrative and esthetic's codes of the saga to come (in my opinion, more than Thomas Harris, who's book could have been adapted in many other ways, as the Michael Mann's adaptation of Red Dragon - "Manhunter" - shows it), the series of film that fallows "Silent of the lamb", if they weren't all good ("Red Dragon" is an absolute waste of talent) had the interest to include a most fascinating character : Dr Hannibal Lecter.In this age of prequels, origins and beginnings, which only shows the incapacity for Hollywood to create a new and original concept, it's not very surprising to see a film that tells us the youth of the distinguish cannibal.
: and of course, like in all American movie, she's really strong in martian art, and a good and wise teacher to young Lecter), and the script is rather stupid.Where "The silent of the lamb" and even "Hannibal" manage to stay rather clever and credible about the psychology of Lecter, this origin is so full of historical mistakes (the after WWII France isn't credible at all : the houses interiors, decors and direction panels seems too modern), clichés (see the German army in the beginning : they flew from the Russian front, but they're all SS and all they could think about is to kill some Jews and Gypsies, and everyone speaks English, no matter were you are !
Interesting to notice, however, that everyone has a different accent...), and facilities (Hannibal's reason to become a cannibal are really poor and incredible).All in all, this movie, enjoyable for one or two torture scenes, is highly dispensable, and, as usual, I strongly recommend you to watch the original movie ("The Silent of the Lamb") rather than this simplification of the character, for you'll learn much more about a psychopath's psychology in the Demme's movie than in this one..
I haven't read the book for Hannibal Rising, but if it's anything like the movie, then I'm very disappointed in Thomas Harris.
Hannibal Lecter was never about physical intimidation or fighting skills - Hannibal, both in the books and previous films, used his masterful intellect, psychopathic manipulation skills and knowledge of human anatomy to his favor.People who liked "Hannibal", might find this movie slightly entertaining.
People who didn't like "Hannibal" will hate this movie, since it's the film of the previous three with least story, and by far the most gore just for the sake of it.
I just saw the film at prepremiere in Bern Switzerland.First of all i read the book and my expectations was huge.I prayed to god not to be disappointed.And i can say no i am not.Although Thomas Harris did a screenplay for this film as well as he wrote the book , some things are not the same in the film like in the book ,and some are missing.Hope missing things are left for the DVD extended edition.Those things can offend some Lecter huge fans as i am too.But this were just several not sooo important things for understanding the film.All in all the film is true to book in all important things and events.I understand too that filmmakers can not integrate all events from book in film cause it would be too long.Gaspard Ulliel plays Hannibal Lecter mostly wery well.What i found slightly negative is ,just maybe,a little bit over the top.That means in some important scenes like murders his face and his art to play Hannibal is very wild.But clear is : after those traumas he had to live with no one can guarantee to stay normal or calm.Man can really see how he enjoy the act of revenge.You can really see it on his face.Those savage deserters that killed his sister really deserve same savage deaths like they did in their past.There are a lot gruesome deaths and images in this movie , what was to expect from a Lecter movie.A lot more than in any Lecter movie before.Some would say :now is a Lecter Mystery over.He is no longer a mystery to us like he was.But no.I would say: this film had to be made as book had to be written.No we understand why he is like he is.Although in this part of life he is still very young , can not always keep his feelings hidden.He is a Young Wild that becomes a Madman cause of his trauma from his childhood that never leave him in peace.For him all of his later victims remaining him of those Deserteurs .One more book and one more film has to be made where he would be explained a little further.His genius , his loving for art , fine things , his life as young doctor in Baltimore , America.He told once to Clarice that lambs are now still and silent but they will not always remain still , they will scream again.So his trauma will always stay with him , his whole life.
Honestly, I do enjoy movies that will tell a story with minimal dialogue, but the film still needs decent actors who can show us what the characters are thinking.
Okay sure, if the title character in this movie were named Hans Frankz and had no ties to the Thomas Harris book series, it could be a decent albeit slow and lengthy film.Unfortunately, the ties to the Lecter story give the director ample opportunity to show his knack for cheesy clichés and lack of imagination.
maybe i could have bought the story if it had been properly developed but it really looks like the script was just thrown together, its not like the world was screaming for a Hannibal prequel, so they could have taken their time and made an amazing movie, instead we ended up with complete rubbish.
The Lecter character wasn't really very appealing and it seemed as if for the whole movie the filmmakers were trying to justify his future acts by making the incident at the beginning of the film seem so awful.
When movie studios want to make a quick buck they take a popular franchise and decide to doop audiences' by delivering useless exposition with a catchy tag-line such as: "See how it all began." In this case you didn't want to know that Hannibal Lecter, the brilliantly demented psychiatrist cannibal we all know and love as Anthony Hopkins, has been reduced to some french-accented worm of an actor (Gaspard Ulliel).
This movie will disappoint Hannibal fans.If you want to see the Hannibal we are familiar with don't bother with watching this thing.And even if you excuse the lack of similarities with the other Hannibal films this movie is still boring and forgettable.In this film we learn of the beginnings of Dr.Hannibal Lector.The atrocities inflicted on his family during the last days of World War II,especially his sister,just flips little Hannibal out and starts him down his wicked road to total evilness.Somehow he gets into a well-to- do medical school in France and learns the things he needs to learn about the human body to further his career,I guess you'd say.Which is fine I guess.But the problem is in the film Hannibal's actions don't seem all that wicked or insane considering what happened to his family.If my family ended up like his did I might also seek revenge like he did and I think most folks feel the same way which sort of mutes Hannibals actions to the viewer.While the characters in the film wonder why Hannibal is so insane and such a monster, we as real people in the audience just aren't that horrified because Hannibal doesn't act all that crazy considering what has happened to him.And the other problem with this film is it doesn't know if it is a straight drama or a horror film so it sort of straddles the line and tries to be both.And it fails at both.Its hard to be a serious drama when you have to utter lines like ,"But he ate my sister!".Also the gore and blood is tame compared to what a straight horror film would have so viewers will be unsatisfied on both levels after watching this film.It also has a slow plodding pace,a way to stretch out the paper thin plot I suppose.And there is none of the trademark Hannibal stuff we are used to.This closest he comes to the well-known face mask is when he tries on a Samauri mask,looking up into the camera with an attempt to scare I guess.It just looked hokey to me.This film isn't terrible but it isn't good either.It is just sort of there, trying to feed off other better made movies about Dr.Lector.Not one to add to your horror collection and actually probably not worth a 2 buck rental but a friend let me borrow his copy so I'm okay there..
I am a huge fan of the Hannibal Lecter series, both movies as well as books.
I was disappointed after watching this film as I was expecting a prequel worthy of Silence of the Lambs movie.
The story is a prequel to the rest of the series and tries to explain Hannibal Lecter's origins, his childhood, and how he came to be a cannibalistic psychopath.The film begins in 1941 in the midst of World War II.
This film is a prequel to "Silence of the Lambs" and seeks to tell how the young Hannibal Lecter, affected by the dramatic events of World War II, became a dangerous cannibal.
Gaspard Ulliel, in the leading role, is a casting error: although he managed to give its character lots of coldness and cynicism, he wasn't able to give it charisma and sense of taste, striking personality traits of Lecter that are quite visible in Hopkins movies.The film contains several intense action scenes with moments that may hurt some people's sensibilities, so be warned.
And the color tones: the reds, the browns, the blacks, and other dark tones really set the mood for this film.Even though Hannibal Lecter seems like a bad guy in this movie, he's really not.
I'd love to see Ulliel do this again.) Harris fails to manage the suspense of the film in a good way, so at times it feels like Lecter is going on a killing spree.
DO NOT GO INTO THIS MOVIE EXPECTING TO SEE ANTHONY HOPKINS, OR THE SAME HANNIBAL THAT WE ALL LOVE IN SILENCE.