A load of violent hooey.
Poor little Hannibal Lecter, and his family (Lithuanian aristocrats) are caught up in fighting between the Nazis and Russians towards the end of WWII. His parents are killed and he’s left looking after his little sister Mischa, who’s captured, killed, and eaten by a group of starving Polish soldiers who’ve been looting in the midst of the carnage. I almost haven’t the will to go on!
Anyway, a few years later he makes his way to France, to his uncle’s widow, a Japanese woman from Hiroshima, in fact Gong Li is the one of the few good things about this film, maybe because just she looks so elegant and attractive, and also lends an aura of faux Samurai mystique to Hannibal’s development as a killer.
Later he goes to Paris to attend medical school, and begins exacting his revenge on the group of soldiers who killed Mischa. From here the film really goes downhill - just gruesome, sadistic killing. Not helped by the fact that Gaspard Ulliel (Hannibal) has all the charisma of a wet blanket, or a dead stoat (and that’s an insult to stoats).
Don’t bother watching this ever, life is too short.
PS. Rhys Ifans has a couple of good moments as the leader of the soldiers.
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