After witnessing the horrific death of his parents and the brutal cannibalization of his younger sister Mischa by soldiers during World War II, a young Hannibal Lecter escapes the Soviet orphanage to find his widowed aunt in France. Haunted by nightmares and fueled by a dark awakening, Hannibal begins a meticulous and bloody quest for revenge against the war criminals who destroyed his family, discovering his own terrifying appetite along the way.
Information |
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Language |
English |
Country |
United States United Kingdom France |
Premiere date |
February 9, 2007 |
Running time |
121 minutes |
Genre |
Crime Drama Thriller Horror |
Budget |
$50,000,000 |
Box Office |
$82,169,884 |
Crew |
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Directed by |
Peter Webber |
Produced by |
Dino De Laurentiis Martha De Laurentiis Tarak Ben Ammar |
Written by |
Thomas Harris |
Music by |
Ilan Eshkeri Shigeru Umebayashi |
Cinematography |
Ben Davis |
Edited by |
Pietro Scalia Valerio Bonelli |
Production Co. |
The Weinstein Company Dino De Laurentiis Company Quinta Communications |
Distributed by |
The Weinstein Company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Top Cast |
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Official Trailer |
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Movie Collection |
Movie Order: #05 in The Hannibal Lecter Collection
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The Plot
The Castle and the Lodge
The story begins in 1941, amidst the turmoil of World War II. Eight-year-old Hannibal Lecter lives in the imposing Lecter Castle, a structure built by his paternal ancestor, Hannibal the Grim, in the Lithuanian countryside. As the German troops advance, the family—Hannibal, his younger sister Mischa, and their parents Herbert and Simonetta—make a desperate escape to the family's hunting lodge hidden deep within the woods. Meanwhile, back at the abandoned castle, a group of six Lithuanian militiamen—Vladis Grutas, Petras Kolnas, Enrikas Dortlich, Zigmas Milko, Bronys Grentz, and Kazys Porvik—approach the Waffen-SS with a request to join their ranks. To prove their loyalty, the SS commander orders them to execute the Lecters' Jewish cook, who had been left behind. The men comply with gleeful cruelty.
Winter of Starvation
At the lodge, the Lecter family's hiding spot is compromised when a Soviet tank stops nearby, searching for water. The soldiers force the family out of the house, but the situation escalates catastrophically when a German Stuka bomber spots the tank. A fierce firefight ensues; the tank manages to shoot down the bomber, but the aircraft crashes directly into the vehicle. The resulting explosion obliterates the area, killing everyone instantly except for Hannibal and Mischa.
Shortly after, the SS militiamen finish looting Lecter Castle. Upon seeing their own SS commander wounded, Grutas callously shoots him and steals his Iron Cross. However, the encroaching Russian advance forces the looters to flee into the woods, where they eventually stumble upon the Lecter lodge. They storm the building, taking it over as a hideout. Trapped by the bitterly cold Baltic winter and finding no food supplies, the starving men turn their gazes menacingly toward the surviving children, Hannibal and Mischa.
The Silent Orphan
Eight years later, Lecter Castle has been converted into a bleak Soviet-run orphanage. Hannibal, now a teenager, has been rendered mute by the trauma of his childhood. He is constantly harassed by a bully who taunts him for refusing to sing the orphanage anthem. When the bully physically attacks him, Lecter reacts with lightning speed, blocking the swing and impaling the bully’s hand with a fork. That evening, Lecter suffers a vivid nightmare, hearing Mischa screaming, which enrages the youth commander enough to lock him in a dungeon. Seizing the opportunity, Lecter escapes the castle and makes his way across Europe to Paris to find his widowed aunt, Lady Murasaki Lecter.
The Education of Hannibal
Under the care of Lady Murasaki, Hannibal begins to heal. She nurtures him, helping him speak for the first time since the war, and instructs him in the disciplines of flower arrangement, martial arts, and ancestor worship. However, their peace is disturbed at a local market when a butcher named Paul Momund makes a crude, racist remark about Lady Murasaki. Lecter attacks him in her defense but is pulled away.
Later, Lecter tracks Momund to a riverbank where the butcher is fishing. He demands an apology, but Momund refuses. In a display of cold precision, Lecter draws a katana and slices the butcher’s stomach, arm, and back before decapitating him. That evening, the family cook serves fish, mentioning to Lecter that the cheeks are the most delicious part—a detail Lecter absorbs with chilling interest. Inspector Pascal Popil, a French detective who lost his own family in the war, suspects Lecter of the murder. However, thanks to Lady Murasaki's intervention—she places Momund’s severed head outside the police headquarters while Hannibal is being interrogated inside—he avoids arrest due to lack of evidence.
Recovered Memories
Hannibal eventually becomes the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. He secures a working scholarship preparing cadavers. During his studies, he witnesses a condemned war criminal receiving a sodium thiopental injection to force a confession. Desperate to recall the faces of the men who killed his sister, Lecter injects himself with the solution while listening to Glenn Gould’s recording of the Goldberg Variations.
The drug induces a lucid flashback, revealing that the "Pot Watcher"—one of the deserters—held the dog tags of the entire group when he was killed during the bombing of the lodge. Lecter realizes that these dog tags, and the identities of Mischa's killers, are likely still buried in the ruins of the lodge.
The Hunter Returns
Lecter returns to Lithuania to hunt for the dog tags and his sister’s remains. Crossing the Soviet border, he attracts the suspicion of Enrikas Dortlich, who is now serving as a Soviet border patrol officer. Unaware of the danger, Lecter excavates the ruins of the lodge, unearthing the dog tags of the deserters. Dortlich follows him and attempts to kill him, but Lecter overpowers him. After respectfully burying Mischa’s remains, Lecter binds Dortlich to a tree and uses a horse-drawn pulley system to torture him into revealing the locations of the other gang members. When Dortlich holds back, Lecter decapitates him with the pulley. As blood splatters across his face, Lecter wipes it off and licks it. When Soviet police later arrive, they find Dortlich’s head with the cheeks carved off, apparently cooked into a brochette.
Fontainebleau and the Embalming Tank
Lecter tracks the next target, Kolnas, to his restaurant in Fontainebleau. inside, he finds Kolnas’ young daughter wearing Mischa’s bracelet. He quietly hands her Kolnas’ old dog tag. When Kolnas enters, Lady Murasaki arrives and persuades Lecter to spare him for the sake of his children. However, the discovery of Dortlich’s body and the appearance of the dog tag puts the group on high alert. Zigmas Milko, now a hitman, is sent to kill Lecter.
Milko infiltrates Lecter’s laboratory at night, armed and ready. Lecter, sensing his presence, outmaneuvers him and knocks him unconscious with an injection. Just as Inspector Popil enters the lab to question Lecter, Hannibal hides the unconscious Milko in a cadaver tank, leaving him to drown in embalming fluid. Popil, unable to prove Lecter’s guilt regarding Dortlich, tries to reason with him. He offers immunity if Lecter helps locate Grutas, who has become a sex trafficker. Popil chillingly remarks to his assistant that the human Hannibal died with Mischa; what remains is a monster.
The Trap for Grutas
Lady Murasaki begs Lecter to abandon his revenge, but he refuses, citing his promise to Mischa. He tracks Grutas to his home, planting a time bomb before attacking him in the bath. Just as Grutas’ bodyguards rush in to slit Lecter’s throat, the bomb detonates. The explosion creates enough chaos for Lecter to escape, though Grutas survives.
In retaliation, Grutas kidnaps Lady Murasaki and calls Lecter, using her as leverage. During the call, Lecter identifies the unique song of ortolans—birds kept by Kolnas at his restaurant—in the background. Lecter returns to the restaurant and threatens Kolnas’ children, forcing him to reveal the location of Grutas’ houseboat. Feigning mercy, Lecter places his gun on a hot stove, telling Kolnas he will leave him alone. When Kolnas instinctively reaches for the weapon, Lecter impales him through the head with a Tanto dagger, which he then conceals behind his back.
The Final Revelation
Lecter arrives at the houseboat to save Lady Murasaki. As he moves to untie her, Grutas shoots him in the back. Grutas then begins to molest Murasaki. However, the bullet struck the Tanto hidden on Lecter's back, breaking the blade but saving his life. Lecter rises, takes the broken dagger, and slashes Grutas’ Achilles tendons, crippling him.
In the final confrontation, Grutas reveals a horrifying truth: Hannibal himself had consumed Mischa in the broth fed to him by the deserters to keep him alive, and Grutas was killing the witnesses to keep this secret. Enraged and broken by the revelation, Lecter slowly carves his sister’s initial, "M," into Grutas’ chest. Lady Murasaki, horrified by his monstrous transformation, flees even as he professes his love for her. Alone with his enemy, Hannibal bites off Grutas’ cheeks. The houseboat is incinerated in a massive explosion, but Lecter, presumed dead, emerges from the woods.
Epilogue
The film concludes some time later in Canada. Lecter has tracked down the final member of the group, Bronys Grentz. He approaches Grentz’s isolated cabin, and after exacting his final revenge, he moves on to America, vanishing into the populace.
