Peter Webber (GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING) directs the latest installment about the monstrous cannibal Hannibal Lecter, revealing the facts of his childhood and the birth of his troubled mind. When he is a young boy in Lithuania, Hannibal and his privileged family flee their castle as both the Nazi and Russian troops advance, going into hiding in a nearby humble cottage. But the war quickly finds them, and Hannibal witnesses horrible atrocities against his family, particularly from a local independent force of brutes led by the creepy Grutas (Rhys Ifans). Years after the war, teenage Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) leaves Lithuania and travels to France, where his uncle's wife, Lady Murasaki (Gong Li), takes him in and befriends him. A gifted medical student, Hannibal studies corpses and anatomy with extreme diligence, but dreams of tracking down and destroying those who harmed him and his family. Soon, he is acting on his impulses, hunting down the perpetrators from his youth and inflicting cruel punishment.

Ulliel is chilling as the stone-faced Hannibal, clearly scarred by his tragic past and ever more determined to exact revenge. Li is luminous onscreen, and her mysterious character deserves more development. Ifans, perhaps best known for his turn as the goofy roommate in NOTTING HILL, is a menacing bully with a heart of stone. Dominic West appears as Inspector Popil, a French detective specializing in war crimes who suffered his own losses during the war, making him sympathetic towards Hannibal even though he is convinced of his guilt. Thomas Harris, the author of the Hannibal series that also includes THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, RED DRAGON, and HANNIBAL, serves as screenwriter for the first time in the Hannibal films.