'Red Dragon' is a crime thriller movie released in 2002. Chronologically, it is the first 'chapter' of the Hannibal Lecter trilogy, although the second chapter, 'Silence of the Lambs', was the first to be released as a film. The third and final installment of the series is 'Hannibal'.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins) is an expert psychiatrist and cannibal serial killer. At a dinner party that he hosts in his house, he serves his guests a delicious meal (viewers immediately know what it consists of), as they talk about a missing musician that has performed poorly in a recent concert attended by Lecter.
Lecter is visited by FBI agent Will Graham (played by Edward Norton) after dinner, who consults Lecter about murder cases that he thinks involves a cannibal serial killer. Graham discovers that Lecter may be his man during their conversation. Lecter attacks Graham but the latter is able to overcome him. Lecter is soon put in a prison for mental cases as a traumatized Graham retires from FBI.
Years pass and a new serial killer named the Tooth Fairy emerges. Special agent Jack Crawford asks Graham to help him profile their criminal. Graham soon realizes that he needs Dr. Lecter to succeed in the profiling, so he visits Lecter in prison.
The Tooth Fairy actually calls himself the 'Red Dragon', because of his obssession with a William Blake painting featuring the Great Red Dragon. Named Francis Dolarhyde (played by Ralph Fiennes), he has become a serial killer to satisfy his uncontrollable urge for sex and violence.
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Figure 1. This torture scene involving the 'Red Dragon' was spoofed by ToyHollywood.com in this video. |
Dolarhyde idolizes Lecter and conducts secret correspondences with him. Graham is initially unaware of this but soon finds out, but not before Lecter is able to give Graham's address to Dolarhyde, which will later put Graham's wife and son in danger.
Graham tries to lure Dolarhyde out of hiding through a journalist named Lounds, provoking Dolarhyde to kidnap, torture, and kill Lounds. Dolarhyde's torturing of Lounds is spoofed by ToyHollywood.com in this video.
Meanwhile, Dolarhyde falls in love with a blind co-worker, Reba McClane. His love for her drove him to steal Blake's original 'Red Dragon' painting from a museum and swallow it, believing that this will free him from urges to kill again.
Graham's detective work soon convinces him that he's looking for someone who has worked on the home videos of his victims. Dolarhyde discovers that he is about to be unmasked, so he pays Reba a final visit. He is enraged when he sees her talking to Ralph Mandy, whom he kills. He takes Reba home with him, but is not able to gather the guts to kill her. Setting his house earlier on fire, he stages his fake death using Mandy's corpse as Reba finds her way out of the burning house.
Dolarhyde gets to Graham's home in Florida, where he takes Graham's son hostage with a knife. Graham has earlier learned that Dolarhyde was abused by his grandmother as a child, so he enrages Dolarhyde by letting him hear him employ the same verbal abuse on his son, to the point of making the boy pee. Dolarhyde is not able to stand this and attacks Graham, releasing the boy in the process. They duel but it was Graham's wife Molly who shoold Dolarhyde dead.
The movie ends with Dr. Lecter being informed that a young lady from the FBI wants to talk to him, presumably the prelude to the events of 'Silence of the Lambs'.
Information on the movie's full credits may be found at:
