Production Companies Young Hannibal Productions, Carthago Films S.a.r.l., Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, ETIC Films, Fatts, Ingenious Film Partners, Quinta Communications, Zephyr Films
Other Titles • Behind the Mask • Hannibal 4 • The Lecter Variation: The Story of Young Hannibal Lecter • The Lecter Variations • Young Hannibal • Young Hannibal: Behind the Mask • Hannibal Rising (2007) • more • more
Synopses for Hannibal Rising (2007)
1.
In RED DRAGON we learned who he was. In SILENCE OF THE LAMBS we learned how he did it. Now comes the most chilling chapter in the life of Hannibal Lecter – the one that answers the most elusive question of all - why?
HANNIBAL RISING marks the first time in the award-winning series that best selling author Thomas Harris ("Red Dragon," "Silence of the Lambs") writes the screenplay – reaching back to explore the origins of Lecter’s rage, terror and savagery.
The story begins in Eastern Europe at the desperate end of World War II. For many it was no longer a conflict of nations but one of individual survival – at any cost. A young Hannibal watches from only steps away as his parents violently die, leaving his cherished young sister in his care. This horrific moment will soon pale in comparison to the atrocities he is forced to witness, changing him forever.
Alone and without any means of support, he is forced to live in a Soviet orphanage that once served as his family’s beloved home. He flees to Paris to find his uncle has died but his beautiful and mysterious Japanese widow, Lady Murasaki (Gong Li) welcomes him. Even her kindness and love cannot soothe the nightmares and sorrows that plague him. Showing a cunning aptitude for science he is accepted into medical school, which serves to hone his skills and provide the tools to exact justice on the war criminals that haunt him day and night. This quest will ignite an insatiable lust within a serial killer who was not born, but made.
Peter Webber (GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING) directs the latest installment about the monstrous cannibal Hannibal Lecter, revealing the facts of his childhood and the birth of his troubled mind. When he is a young boy in Lithuania, Hannibal and his privileged family flee their castle as both the Nazi and Russian troops advance, going into hiding in a nearby humble cottage. But the war quickly finds them, and Hannibal witnesses horrible atrocities against his family, particularly from a local independent force of brutes led by the creepy Grutas (Rhys Ifans). Years after the war, teenage Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) leaves Lithuania and travels to France, where his uncle's wife, Lady Murasaki (Gong Li), takes him in and befriends him. A gifted medical student, Hannibal studies corpses and anatomy with extreme diligence, but dreams of tracking down and destroying those who harmed him and his family. Soon, he is acting on his impulses, hunting down the perpetrators from his youth and inflicting cruel punishment.
Ulliel is chilling as the stone-faced Hannibal, clearly scarred by his tragic past and ever more determined to exact revenge. Li is luminous onscreen, and her mysterious character deserves more development. Ifans, perhaps best known for his turn as the goofy roommate in NOTTING HILL, is a menacing bully with a heart of stone. Dominic West appears as Inspector Popil, a French detective specializing in war crimes who suffered his own losses during the war, making him sympathetic towards Hannibal even though he is convinced of his guilt. Thomas Harris, the author of the Hannibal series that also includes THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, RED DRAGON, and HANNIBAL, serves as screenwriter for the first time in the Hannibal films.
(81 votes)
3.
The film tells the tale of Hannibal Lecter's childhood in 1940s Europe.
(78 votes)
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