Red Dragon vs. Manhunter

Cafe Society
1

I just recently saw Red Dragon on DVD. Having been a fan of the vastly under-rated Manhunter, I was making constant comparisons to it while watching, much to the annoyance of my wife.

What’s Better About Manhunter

  • William Petersen as Will Graham. I wasn’t impressed with Ed Norton’s performance at all (almost flippant), and Petersen’s performance let us into his mind and allowed us to see just how close he was to becoming those who he chased.
  • Family involvement. The connection between Graham, his wife, and his son was shown quite a bit better in Manhunter. Red Dragon gave them, what, 30 seconds of screen time and thus gave me very little reason to care about them.
  • The Red Dragon himself. Tom Noonan gave a defintely scary portrayal of the scarred murderer and made me feel all the more how much he cared for Reba. Ralph Fiennes was too good looking and too silent for me to feel any empathy for him.
  • The tiger scene. I felt a lot more how amazing that was for Reba to feel the tiger in Manhunter. In Red Dragon, it almost felt like “Oh, it’s a tiger.”
  • Brian Cox - His almost non-chalance in playing Lecter made him scarier.
  • Nothing about the split persona. In Red Dragon, Dolarhyde is portrayed as having a split persona, the meek guy and the evil red dragon (which becomes even more evident when watching the deleted scenes). While this may have been more true to the book, it made it seem like it wasn’t his fault, like he was possessed. Manhunter did not take such an easy out, making the character all the more fearful.
  • Sympathy. I felt more sympathy for Dolarhyde in Manhunter than in Red Dragon. Can’t say exactly why, though.
  • Minimal screen time for Lecter. Red Dragon placed too much emphasis on what is a relatively minor character, detracting from the Red Dragon character.
    What’s Better About Red Dragon
  • More true to the book. I haven’t read the book, but I could tell that they threw in a lot more details that were in the book. Reviews I’ve read have confirmed this.
  • Ending. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the ending of Manhunter with the “IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA” music in the background. But having the Red Dragon go after Graham’s family had been aluded to earlier in the film, but only Red Dragon film made it a real threat.
  • Anthony Hopkins. I think that his performances in the series are overrated (i.e. not necessarily Oscar worthy), but he defintely gives the impression of a high-society cannibal better than Brian Cox.
  • More thorough. Almost fits in more true to the book, but many of the details left in the film fleshed out the story. The main one that comes to mind is stating that the carving in the tree is a Mah Jong tile called the Red Dragon, not a Chinese character for Red Dragon.
  • Better understanding of motivation. I understood better why Dolarhyde was doing what he was doing; however, the abusive guardian was almost too cliche.
2

I saw Manhunter when it first came out on cable (20 ?) years ago. It still gives me the creeps. I must have seen it 2-3 times after and the creeps never went away !
JUST as creepy as the book.

Did I say creepy too much ?

3

Red Dragon was made purely to allow Anthony Hopkins to ‘complete the set’ I’m sure - there’s no ‘love’ or ‘soul’ in the film at all - other than his…

That said - he really has gotten into that character WELL - he’s said that he does it because he really enjoys it and you can tell…

It is a little more faithful to the book - esp. in explaning what happened between Lecter and Graham at the start - but otherwise the original posters points are all valid - there’s no emotion or ‘link’ to the characters at all - it’s ‘formula film’…

Manhunter is, of course, just another slab of the genius which is Micheal Mann - and whilst it won’t be to everyone’s taste, it remains my preference by some margin…

TTFN

JP

4

While Red Dragon was much truer to the book, and thus a more honest adaptation, it managed to just reiterate those events from the book rather blandly and without much style. In fact, the movie struck me by its total generic feeling…there’s just no memorable moments in it.

Manhunter, on the other hand, streamlined the book to focus on Graham, and it did leave quite a bit of the story out, but it managed to perfectly capture the atmosphere of dread and despair that made the book so effective.

The key thing that gives Manhunter the edge over Red Dragon is William Petersen’s performance…the man IS Will Graham. Norton, as much as I like him, just slept-walked through his performance.

5

I haven’t read the book, or seen Red Dragon. I have seen Manhunter. Since Mom has several ivory Mah Jongg sets, I recognized the red dragon symbol immediately. However, as Mah Jongg did originate in China, I always assumed that what seemed to be Chinese characters(the crack suit, the winds, etc) were actually Chinese writings.

Is the symbol on the tile not the pictogryph for red dragon?

6

The only way I found out about the difference is from imdb:

From http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0289765. Also, the Manhunter goofs used to have an entry saying that the character does not mean “red dragon”.

7

I didn’t care for the casting of Red Dragon, and that’s what killed it for me. Ed Norton didn’t have the right look (not to mention voice) to play Will Graham. Ralph Fiennes as Francis Dolarhyde? I found this hard to accept after him being considered a sex symbol for so long.

The only casting choices I approved of were Emily Wilson and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

8

I like the casting of Ralph Fiennes as Dolarhyde. I think Noonan looked like a scary guy and would’ve had a much more difficult time blending with society. Ralph Fiennes is a good looking guy and even with a hairlip would’ve been able to blend in with everyone. He’s the kind of guy that no one would really suspect of being a serial killer. The fact that he was a good looking guy made him scarier to me because he could’ve been just like any guy in my office, church, or someone I come in contact with on a regular basis.

9

I haven’t seen Red Dragon yet, but I saw Manhunter many times, and I’ve read the book.

Manhunter blew me away when I caught part of it, unexpected, on cable. I hadn’t heard a word about it beforehand. Unfortunately, I had to leave be4fore I saw the whole thing, so I was sure to get a copy of it to watch the whole thing. It’s rare that a movie grabs me like that.

Mann’s direction was excellent, as were all the performances. I was sure that Mannintroduced the tiger scene to get in that surreal image. But, nope, it’s therre in the book.

I really liked the scenes with the families, and especially the scene between Will Graham and his son in the grocery store where he talks about his job and Hannibal Lekter without going into detail, but without pulling punches, either. You coul;d imagine a real detective talking to his family about his business this way. I’d never seen anything like this in any other crime film, and it worked well.

I liked Brian Cox’ Lekter better than Hopkins’ Lecter. Cox really convinced me that he was both a genius and insane, in a way that Hopkins did not. You knew that Starling was never in danger from Lecter, but everyone was a potential victim for Lekter. Incidentally, in the book and the first film, Lekter is not a cannibal. I think the idea must have occurred to author Stone while musing on the name “Hannibal”.

It’s clear to me that the success of the first film drove the making of Silence of the Lambs, which resembled it in so many ways, except for having a much bigger part for Hannibal. It also drone Peterson to create “CSI” so that he could basically play Will Graham at length.

Finally, I don’t mind that Manhunter changed the ending – the “killer seems dead but really isn’t” has been done to death, and is never really convincing.
I’ll have to see Red Dragon yet, just to see the differences, but it’s an unfair comparison in that Manhunter pounced upon me unawares, while Red Dragon has to deal with my expectations.

10

I saw Red Dragon on Saturday night for the first time.

I have to say, the only thing I liked about it over Manhunter was that Ed Norton’s style didn’t emulate Miami Vice, with the terrible stubble and rolled-up jacket sleeves. I didn’t really like either actor in the role, really. Ed Norton was a bit bland, and the other guy just looked worried all the time.

I thought Hopkins was just coasting - he was in the same cell for some of the scenes, the contrast between his jaw-dropping performance in Silence… and this one was stark.

I liked Feinnes in the part, but I thought the contrast between his insane persona and the nice side he showed to the blind girl wasn’t as great as it could have been. The guy out of Manhunter handled this better.

IMO, both movies are flawed, but in different ways.

11

THe symboil is often used to represent China as well, as China is the Middle Kingdom. If you notice most chinese restaraunts that have the word China in their name have the same symbol in their name in Chinese.

12

The characters are literally: “chung gwok” (sorry, I only do Cantonese) - meaning “Central Country”.

IMO, this nomenclature explains a certain attitude from some of its citizens…

13

I felt Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal of Lecter devolved into outright parody in Red Dragon, and agree that Brian Cox truly gave a more subtle performance as Lecter in Manhunter. I probably posted this before in a Red Dragon thread, but I think Ed Norton was horribly miscast as Graham. He had none of the tortured exhaustion and obsessive compulsion William Petersen brought to the role, and I just didn’t think Norton was old enough to play the part. And Petersen in short shorts? Nummy.

The one thing that truly grates on me from Manhunter is the crashing 80’s soundtrack/score, which when coupled with the aforementioned Miami Vice fashion sense really dates the film. The scene where Dolarhyde kills that guy from Reba’s work outside her house is especially weird, with some synth-ballad tune playing over it.

Spoilers below are for the end of Harris’s novel, Red Dragon, in case anyone’s dead set on reading it and hasn’t yet.

I was disappointed in both Manhunter and Red Dragon for rejecting the ending of Harris’s novel, where Graham has to accept the fact Lecter was correct in his analysis of their relationship. The only reason Graham was able to capture Lecter, so Lecter tells it, is that they are just alike, two sides of the same coin. Graham resists this impulse, I felt, until the end of the book where he visits Shiloh.

14

I know this is a 12 year old thread but it’s a subject I want to revisit after seeing Manhunter today for the first time in many years.

I’m surprised the earlier thread made no mention of what I see as by far the biggest difference between the two films – the cinematography. Red Dragon is shot very conventionally, and visually it is like any of 10 thousand other film dramas.

Manhunter is in a whole different league. Almost every shot is visually stunning, unusual framing, a beautiful color palette, more attention paid to the background. It just goes on and on. Michael Mann is known for this, and perhaps because it’s a sort of signature of his it wasn’t particularly commented on. But in a case like this – essentially the same film shot with two different visions, the difference is stark.

We could quibble all day long about the performances. I prefer Dennis Farina’s FBI boss to Harvey Keitel’s, and Ed Norton’s Will to William Peterson’s. But all in all, I’d call it a wash between the two performance-wise.

But Manhunter just kicks ass on style. Look at the homes where the murders took place. And Lector’s prison – all clearly selected to set up gorgeous imagery. There’s a very brief scene, just a few seconds, that’s a pan across a prison cell and toilet, that looked like a piece of modern art in itself.

Just thought I’d share. :stuck_out_tongue:

15

Michael Mann is a terrible director, who has done competent yet boring stuff at his best, and terrible style-over-substance (and a very outdated style at that) pieces of absolute narrative nonsense at his worst. Which is also his usual.

And Manhunter is him at his very worst. The movie is somewhat saved by the reasonably decent original source, but dear god is that movie stupidly directed. Random close ups for no reason, a single take being cut in several similar angles in the typical misguided attempt at giving MTV dynamism some directors had at the time, slow motion just because. This is a movie that wouldn’t make it as a Corman production. Hell, even Troma would send this amateur packing.

Watch the movie. Actually watch it without the wool in the eyes some people seem to force upon themselves when watching anything by Mann. Mann’s ADHD makes Michael Bay look like Visconti. I’m positively convinced that if Mann had used Alan Smithee as an alias for this film, nobody, and I mean nobody would be fooled into thinking that this is anything but truly crappy storytelling.

16

I will remember to pay no mind to your movie comments in the future. I don’t know what his recent productions are like, but this was in the 80s and it was remarkable at the time and sill stands out today.

I will admit that he was more about style over substance. That was pretty much the definition of Miami Vice, and I wasn’t a fan. Fortunately, as you mentioned he had very strong material to start with, so the substance came from elsewhere.

17

Manhunter wheelchair

Red Dragon wheelchair

18

I’m with Boyo Jim about the value of style in Manhunter. You don’t want style watch a documentary. Plus the better casting and acting. And especially the best use of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida EVER!

19

Strongly disagree. Peterson’s performance blows Norton’s away. Norton is clearly just there for the paycheck, while Peterson actually gives a convincing performance of a haunted man.

Pretty much everything about Red Dragon was unremarkable.

20

My main complaint about Manhunter is that some scenes are so dark (as in the absence of light) that I can barely see what’s going on.

Note that I’ve only seen Manhunter on TV, so take my comment with a grain of salt.

I agree that the wheelchair scene from Manhunter is unforgettable, though!