Hannibal Rising

What’s the Story?

HANNIBAL RISING traces the beginnings of serial killer Hannibal Lecter. As child in 1944 Lithuania, Hannibal sees his parents die during a fight between Russian tanks and German planes. Little Hannibal and his younger sister Mischa (Helena Lia Tachovska) are beset by starving German deserters, who end up eating Mischa. The memory wreaks havoc with Hannibal's psyche and eventually leads him to seek vengeance against these men, who were deemed war criminals. After escaping a Soviet orphanage, Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) finds his aunt by marriage, Japanese wartime survivor Lady Murasaki (Gong Li) in France. Murasaki instructs Hannibal in martial arts. When he kills a butcher to defend her honor, Murasaki worries a little but helps him hide the crime from Inspector Popil (Dominic West). Determined to avenge his sister's grisly end, Hannibal pursues the men who ate her.

Is It Any Good?

The deaths are grotesque and the blood splatty, but Hannibal the movie doesn't demonstrate the cultural sophistication that Hannibal the character will later develop (if Silence of the Lambs is any indication, that is). Here, he's a bitter, anxious boy-man, a medical student who prepares cadavers for other students' autopsies -- discovering as he does so not only his pleasure in such activities, but also his gift. He is a grandly self-absorbed killer. When at last Murasaki begs him to stop, he cannot. His reason always: "They ate my sister." It's a terrible refrain and leads to a revolting psychosis. You can't help but miss Anthony Hopkins, whose sly wit alleviated at least some of Hannibal's thudding brutality.