New to DVD: 'Hannibal Rising'

Prequel enlightens viewers as to the cannibal in Hannibal

Thursday, May 31, 2007

'HANNIBAL RISING'

Pity the poor meat vendor who makes a cutting remark to young Hannibal Lecter's gorgeous aunt, Lady Murasaki Shikibu. Within days, Hannibal is doing his own cutting with a razor-sharp sword, shiny and pristine, not a nick to be found.

"The butcher was like butter," he says.

And so it begins.

Well, not really. The scary serial killer we all came to love, courtesy of Anthony Hopkins' Oscar-winning turn in "Silence of the Lambs," is played here by French actor Gaspard Ulliel, and the beginning actually dates to 1944. That's when Hannibal is forced to witness the cannibalism on his sister at the hands -- and mouths -- of a band of barbaric, starving soldiers.

Hannibal vows revenge, naturally, and the rest of the film -- a prequel designed to add motive to the mayhem that comes later -- is a cat-and-mouse game of bitter brutality. We watch as Lady M (Gong Li) imparts her martial arts skills on her protege, and as medical school affixes the "Dr." to Lecter.

But mostly we watch one killing after another, each more gruesome than the last.

What elevates "Hannibal Rising" ($29.95; Genius Products) beyond your puppy-mill-variety freak flick is the screenplay and performances. The script is written by Thomas Harris, author of the Lecter books, and he delivers a plot filled with suitable background, chills and thrills, a few twists and decent if not delightful dialogue. Wit is a rare commodity, but the fine cast delivers its lines with conviction and confidence.

Ulliel makes a persuasive and, of course, disturbing Hannibal, which is the point after all. But the best performances belong to the seductive Li and villainous Rhys Ifans. Director Peter Webber does a nice job of keeping the film atmospheric and tense, and his World War II scenes are particularly well staged.

Just out on DVD, you also get a few extras that stoke the coals. Best of the lot is "Hannibal Lecter: The Origin of Evil," which takes you behind the scenes during the filming and spends a bit of time on Harris' screenplay.

Another featurette -- "Allan Starski: Designing Horror and Elegance" -- is pretty much a puff job for the movie's production designer. (And really, what's Starski without Hutch?)

Thankfully, the extras also include a commentary track with Webber and producer Martin De Laurentiis. While it might have been nice to have Harris on board, these two do a credible job of dissecting (pun intended) the Lecter mystique, with comparisons drawn between this film and the others in the franchise.

You also get a few deleted scenes with commentary, but nothing you couldn't live without.

What really matters here is context, and you didn't need extras to learn the back story. As prequels go, "Hannibal Rising" did a pretty good job of that on its own. As that other Hannibal -- the African warrior, circa 217 B.C. -- once said, "We must find a way, or make one." This film crew found a way and made a good picture. Good enough, anyway.

-- Allan Walton, Post-Gazette features editor

'KATHARINE HEPBURN: 100TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION'

Half a dozen lesser-known Hepburn films make their DVD debuts in honor of the actress' centennial. The highlights of the six-disc set come from the beginning and end of Hepburn's career with 1933's "Morning Glory," a tale of a rural woman struggling to become a Broadway star that earned the actress her first of four Academy Awards, and 1979's "The Corn Is Green," George Cukor's TV remake of the Bette Davis classic about a teacher in a Welsh mining town.

The set also includes four other films from the 1930s and '40s: "Without Love," with Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in a marriage of convenience; "Dragon Seed," an adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's novel set against Japan's invasion of China in World War II; "Undercurrent," co-starring Robert Taylor and Robert Mitchum in a thriller about a woman whose husband is plotting to kill her; and "Sylvia Scarlett," with Hepburn on the lam disguised as a man in a romance co-starring Cary Grant.

Each movie is accompanied by a vintage short film and cartoon. ($59.92).

-- David Germain, Associated Press

NEW THIS WEEK

"Hannibal Rising" and "Katharine Hepburn 100th Anniversary Collection": See reviews.