Hannibal Rising is a 2007 thriller film, the fifth film to feature Dr. Hannibal Lecter. It is a prequel to Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Red Dragon in the Hannibal Lecter series. The film is an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ 2006 novel of the same name and tells the story of Lecter’s evolution into the infamous serial killer of the previous films and books.
The film is directed by Peter Webber from a screenplay by Harris. It was filmed in Barrandov Studios in Prague. It is produced by the Dino De Laurentiis Company and was released on February 9, 2007. Theatrical distribution in the United States was handled by The Weinstein Company and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The DVD was released on May 29, 2007 in Unrated Widescreen and R-rated Full-Screen editions.
Lecter is eight years old when at the beginning of the novel ( 1941 ), living in Lecter Castle in Lithuania , when Operation Barbarossa , Adolf Hitler ‘s invasion of the Soviet Union turns the Baltic region into a part of the bloodiest front line of World War II . Lecter, his sister Mischa and his parents escape to the family’s hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. After three years, the Nazis are finally driven out of the countries now occupied by the Soviet Union. During their retreat, however, they destroy a Soviet tank that had stopped at the Lecter family’s lodge looking for water. The explosion kills everyone but Lecter and Mischa. They survive in the cottage until six former Lithuanian militiamen, led by a Nazi collaborator named Vladis Grutas , storm and loot it. Finding no other food, they kill and cannibalize a young boy they have captured and held, chained, in the barn, and then Lecter’s young sister Mischa to the despair and agony of young Hannibal who has to watch her being dragged, screaming his name, suspended in the air by her arms. Lecter is beaten with a log as he hears an axe end the life of Mischa. He blacks out and is later found wandering and mute by a Soviet tank crew that takes him back to Lecter Castle, which is now a Soviet orphanage.
Lecter is removed from the orphanage by his uncle, a noted painter, and he goes to live with him in France. The happiness of their lives together is cut short with his uncle’s sudden death. Most of the estate is taken for death duties .
Lecter goes to live in reduced circumstances with his aunt and they develop a special relationship. While in France, Lecter flourishes as a medical student. He commits his first murder as a teenager, killing a local butcher who insulted his aunt. He is suspected of the butcher’s murder by Inspector Popil, a French detective who also lost his family to the war. Thanks in part to his aunt’s intervention, however, Lecter escapes responsibility for the crime.
Lecter divides his time between medical school in France and hunting those who killed and cannibalized his sister. One by one, he crosses paths with Grutas’ men, killing them all in the most inventively gruesome ways possible. Eventually, Popil arrests Lecter, but Lecter is freed when popular support for his dispatch of war criminals combines with a lack of hard evidence. The novel ends with Lecter going to America to begin his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland .
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