Reviews: DVD

Hannibal Rising

Directed by Peter Webber, starring Gaspard Ulliel, Gong Li

The fourth cinematic outing of Hannibal Lecter (actually the fifth if you count Michael Mann's Manhunter) is such a disappointment that it has basically killed the franchise.

The prequel traces Lecter from his boyhood in Lithuania to his youth in France and shows why he becomes who he is known as. Lecter is portrayed as the angel of revenge and tracks down all of his sister's killers/eaters, who, not coincidentally, are all wickedly evil in the first place, and kills them with increasing ingenuity.

By giving him justification, the movie removes all moral ambiguity which has made the character so fascinating. The actor who plays the young Lecter has a whiff of aristocratic air but none of Anthony Hopkins' charisma.

Chinese actress Gong Li plays a Japanese mentor, exuding her usual smoldering hauteur. But there's little for her to chew on.

RZ

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Clint Eastwood, Mario Van Peebles

Like an early model Chevy, rust and all, veteran marine Tom Highway just keeps chugging on, having fought in several wars and earned a few medals to pin to his puffed up chest. But his beloved Marine Corps is no longer filled with hardened go-getters like him. The young guys he's been ordered to sharpen are brash but relatively soft lay-abouts who find ridiculous the notion that glory can be earned on the battlefield.

This is a plot we've seen many times before but as a credit to its star, director and producer, it's well executed. While Eastwood's ambitions here are not as lofty as say, Unforgiven or Mystic River, he nonetheless moulds a worthy action romp out of a bunch of cliches.

Of course, a guy like Highway has got the requisite ex-wife whom he neglected through years of service to his country.

And like many of Eastwood's former screen personas, Highway is not shy of a barroom fight or a few dozen cleansing ales. He's too old now to change his ways and mercifully, Eastwood doesn't force change upon him. The climactic battle scene may be nothing more than a skirmish but that seems a fitting late chapter for Highway not even combat is as grand as it used to be.

Ben Davey

(China Daily 04/05/2007 page20)