Hannibal Rising

Synopsis

Lecter is eight years old at the beginning of the novel (1941), living in Lecter Castle in Lithuania, when 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 then Lecter's young sister Mischa. Lecter blacks out and is found wandering and mute by a Soviet tank crew that takes him back to Lecter Castle, which is now a Soviet orphanage. After two years, Lecter's uncle Robert, a painter living in France, comes to Lithuania and takes the boy to live with him and his wife, the Lady Murasaki Shikibu. While in France, Lecter flourishes as a student. He commits his first murder as a teenager, killing a local butcher who insults his aunt, in a series of events leading to his uncle's death. He is suspected of the butcher's murder by Inspector Popil, an 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 coming to America to begin his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

director: Peter Webber

Cast: Rhys Ifans, Li Gong, Gaspard Ulliel, Richard Brake

Hannibal Rising is a novel written by Thomas Harris, the fourth in a series featuring his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter. The novel, a prequel to Harris' Lecter novels, chronicles the iconic serial killer's childhood and early adulthood. The novel was released on December 5, 2006 with an initial printing of at least 1.5 million copies, but was met to poor reviews. A CD version has also been released, with Harris reading the text.