Hannibal Rising, released in 2007, is terrible. Horrible. Awful. Where do I even start?
Audiences seemed to like it. Critics hated it. Sometimes, I think critics get things wrong, but in this case, they were right. The audiences were wrong. Hannibal Rising is a film that shouldn’t have existed.
The movie tries to offer a rationale for why Hannibal Lecter became a violent psychopath. Guess what? It’s because of Nazis. This film paints him as a hero, as though he’s some kind of Nazi hunter avenging a great injustice—and that completely wrecks the character.
In the first Hannibal Lecter film, The Silence of the Lambs, he was pure evil. That was the appeal: not just that he was evil, but that he was skilled at manipulation. Hannibal Rising kicks sand in the eye of that portrayal. It’s a total tonal shift. We don’t need Hannibal as a good guy. We don’t need to feel empathy for a serial killer. He doesn’t need to be an antihero.
And what is with this obsession with antiheroes? Why do they need to exist? Why can’t bad guys just be bad guys? Do we really need a psychological breakdown explaining why Hannibal became what he was? I don’t know. This whole appetite for antiheroes rubs me the wrong way. We don’t need to pretend bad people are somehow good. And we definitely don’t need a sexy Hannibal.
That’s another thing. This movie presents him as a suave bad boy, and it just becomes even creepier—but not in the way the film intended. And I’ll get into why in a moment.
Because beyond all that, this movie suffers from inexplicable Orientalism.
Young Hannibal—who, by the way, is a minor at the start of the film—has a guardian, a Japanese woman living in France. And somehow, she embodies every Asian stereotype imaginable. She has a basement where she worships her ancestors. She keeps ancient swords. Her house is full of kimonos and various Japanese knickknacks.
I don’t know how Gong Li felt playing this character, especially given China’s history with Japan—particularly during World War II, when much of this film takes place. But the exoticism of her character really rubbed me the wrong way. It reduces Asian women to caricatures.
And since I have a Chinese Canadian wife, I would never watch this film with her. I know she’d find it offensive.
But it gets worse.
This Japanese guardian—again, his guardian when he was a minor—becomes his love interest. That’s right. They kiss. She becomes his lover. Who approved that decision? My God, it’s so awkward. Why did she have to be his guardian? Why couldn’t she just be someone he met by chance in France? No, she had to be his literal guardian. And yeah, the whole thing felt incestuous.
And let’s talk about the budget.
This film cost $75 million. Seventy-five million dollars. And for what? The entire story is ridiculous. You know, yesterday I was talking about The Asylum—the kings of mockbusters—and how sometimes, just sometimes, their mockbusters are better than the blockbusters they’re parodying. If The Asylum had made a mockbuster of Hannibal Rising, it probably would have been better. And it would’ve cost $500,000.
I mean, I see where the money went. The big crowd shots. The technically impressive cinematography. The sound design. Sure, it all looks good. But in terms of storytelling? In terms of characters making any sense? Nothing works.
And the ending? Completely absurd. I won’t spoil anything, just in case someone decides to watch it, but let’s just say—I laughed. Not because the film was being intentionally funny, but because it was so bad.
The one good thing about this film?
Gaspard Ulliel. He gave a solid performance with what little he had. He played a decent Hannibal. If you judge the film solely on his performance—great. But one good actor doesn’t make a movie. He still had to act alongside everyone else. And as good as he was, one actor can only do so much.
By the way, RIP Gaspard Ulliel. He passed away in 2022 in a skiing accident, which was tragic. But he donated his organs and saved six lives in the process. That’s something worth remembering.
I’d like to check out his other films because Hannibal Rising did not do him justice.
So, you probably know where I’m going with this—I don’t recommend Hannibal Rising. Out of all the Hannibal films and even the TV show, this is the worst offering by far.
Skip this one. You don’t need a sexy, Nazi-hunting Hannibal who sleeps with his Japanese guardian.
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