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- This entry is about the 2002 film. For other entries with similar names, see Red dragon.
| Red Dragon | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Brett Ratner |
| Produced by | Dino De Laurentiis |
| Written by | Thomas Harris (novel) Ted Tally (screenplay) |
| Starring | Edward Norton Anthony Hopkins Ralph Fiennes Harvey Keitel Emily Watson Philip Seymour Hoffman Mary-Louise Parker |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
| Cinematography | Dante Spinotti |
| Editing by | Mark Helfrich |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 4, 2002 |
| Running time | 124 min. |
| Country | USA  |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Hannibal (2001) |
| Followed by | Hannibal Rising (2007) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Red Dragon is a 2002 thriller film, based on the novel of the same name written by Thomas Harris featuring the brilliant psychiatrist and menacing serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
Directed by Brett Ratner and written by Ted Tally (who also wrote the screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs), it starred Edward Norton as Graham and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter — a role he had, by then, played twice before in The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.
Red Dragon is, in publishing chronology, the first story in the Lecter saga (Hannibal Rising, a later-published origin story, was released on February 9, 2007). Red Dragon's story takes place before the events in The Silence of the Lambs, and after Lecter's original capture and incarceration. While Lecter plays a central role, Red Dragon focuses more on the characters of Will Graham and the tortured serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde.
Contents |
Cast
- Anthony Hopkins - Hannibal Lecter
- Edward Norton - Will Graham
- Ralph Fiennes - Francis Dolarhyde
- Harvey Keitel - Jack Crawford
- Emily Watson - Reba McClane
- Philip Seymour Hoffman - Freddy Lounds
- Mary Louise Parker - Molly Graham
- Anthony Heald - Frederick Chilton
- Frankie Faison - Barney Matthews
- Ellen Burstyn - Grandma Dolarhyde (voice)
- Frank Langella - Great Red Dragon (voice) (scenes deleted)
Plot
In his Baltimore townhouse, after hosting a dinner party, famous local psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter is approached by Will Graham, a young gifted FBI agent tracking a local serial killer whose victims have all been cannibalized. During the consultation and brainstorming session, Graham discovers evidence implicating Dr. Lecter in the murders, shortly before Lecter returns and attacks Graham, wounding and nearly killing him before Graham resists and subdues him. Lecter is subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in an institution for the criminally insane while Graham, severely traumatized by the experience, retires from the FBI.
Years later, another serial killer appears. Nicknamed the Tooth Fairy, he stalks and murders seemingly random families during sequential full moons. Displeased with his current team of inexperienced agents, Special Agent Jack Crawford seeks out Graham and pleads for his assistance. Graham, believing the death of another family to be an unbearable burden on his conscience, reluctantly agrees. Graham, coming to the realization that most of his previous success was achieved due to the insightful collaborations of Dr. Lecter, concludes that he must once again visit Lecter and seek his help in capturing the Tooth Fairy, a disturbed man named Francis Dolarhyde who worships Lecter after learning of his crimes. Calling himself The Great Red Dragon (because of his obsession with the William Blake painting, "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun"). Dolarhyde is unable to control his violent and sexual urges, which turns him into a dangerous serial killer. These conditions were born from the systematic child abuse he suffered at the hands of his grandmother.
Graham continues to run into complications, the first being Freddy Lounds, a tabloid reporter whom Graham despises from the days following the conviction of Dr. Lecter and who now follows Graham relentlessly for leads on the Tooth Fairy story. Further complicating the investigation is the correspondence between Lecter and Dolarhyde, where Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address, endangering Graham's wife and child. Fortunately, both complications are solved: the first because Dolarhyde kills Lounds after the latter writes unfavorably about him in the newspapers; the second because Graham manages to evacuate his family from their house before any harm can come to them.
In the meantime, Dolarhyde falls in love with a blind co-worker named Reba McClane. Dolarhyde's new-found love conflicts with his homicidal urges, which manifest themselves in his mind as 'The Great Red Dragon'. After his association with Reba, Dolarhyde attempts to stop the Dragon's "possession" of him. In order to stop killing, he believes that he must dominate the dragon by consuming the original painting. Dolarhyde goes to the Brooklyn Museum, beats a museum secretary unconscious, and eats the original Blake watercolor of The Red Dragon.
Graham eventually realizes that the killer knew the layout of his victims' houses from their home videos, which he only could have seen if he worked for a home video editing company, the company that transfers the home videos to video cassette. Dolarhyde's job gives him access to all home movies that pass through the company. Sensing that he is about to be caught, Dolarhyde goes to see Reba one last time, but he finds her talking to a co-worker, Ralph Mandy. Enraged, Dolorhyde kills Ralph Mandy, kidnaps McClane and, having taken her to his house, sets the place on fire. He intends to kill her and then himself, but finds himself unable to shoot her. After he apparently shoots himself, McClane escapes.
Graham is given Dolarhyde's scrapbook, saved from the wreckage of the house, which details the killer's tragic childhood and obsessions with murder. Despite himself, Graham feels pity for Dolarhyde, who he realizes was made a monster, not born one.
However, it turns out Dolarhyde did not shoot himself but instead the body of Ralph Mandy in order to stage his own death. Dolarhyde pursues Graham to his home and attacks Graham's son. In order to save his son, Graham subsequently uses the same obscenities that Dolarhyde's grandmother had used against him, on his own son. This enrages Dolarhyde, who attacks Graham, allowing his son to escape to safety. Graham's wife, Molly, ends the horrific ordeal by shooting and killing Dolarhyde. After recovering, Graham receives a letter from Lecter, which bids him well and hopes that he isn't too disfigured. The film ends with Dr. Frederick Chilton informing Lecter that there is a young woman from the FBI waiting to speak with him; presumably beginning The Silence of the Lambs' film.
Differences between versions
The story of Red Dragon has been filmed twice. The first film, released in 1986 under the title Manhunter, was written and directed by Michael Mann and focused on FBI Special Agent Will Graham, played by William Petersen. Lecter (renamed Lecktor) was played by Brian Cox. Manhunter is often recognized as a looser adaptation, leaving out Dolarhyde's backstory and having him die at Graham's hands during the climatic scene of the movie. Ratner's Red Dragon was more faithful to the novel in some respects. Lecter in Ratner's adaptation appears numerous times, and even the opening sequence was filmed specifically to show the audience how he got caught by Will Graham (in a version modified from the book.) Red Dragon's chronology also does not match that of the novel's.
The character Ralph Mandy corresponds to Ralph Dandridge in Manhunter, and a composite of Dandridge and Ralph Mandy in the novel. Also: the body of Ralph Mandy found in the burned down house in the novel is instead that of a gas station attendant with whom Dolarhyde had had a previous confrontation.
Response
Red Dragon was a box office success, earning $92,930,005 in the US [1]. It received a mixed reaction from many critics. While some reviewers compared it negatively to Manhunter, others, such as Roger Ebert, were enthusiastic about the remake. The average Rotten Tomatoes rating was 'fresh' with a rating of 68 percent, much lower than Manhunter's 94%, which also had 100 percent by its Cream of the Crop, comparing to Red Dragon's very low Cream of the Crop rating. However, there are only 32 Manhunter reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes as opposed to 177 Red Dragon reviews. [2].
References
External links
- Official website
- Red Dragon at the Internet Movie Database
- The Hannibal Lecter Studiolo
- William Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun
- Edward Norton interview for Red Dragon
- Red Dragon at Rotten Tomatoes
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| Novels Red Dragon • The Silence of the Lambs |
Main Characters |
Films Manhunter • The Silence of the Lambs • Hannibal |
| Secondary Characters List of minor characters in the Hannibal series |
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| Preceded by Sweet Home Alabama (film) |
Box office number-one films of 2002 (USA) October 7, 2002 |
Succeeded by The Ring (2002 film) |
