When he died, Stieg Larsson left three manuscripts which would go onto become bestsellers when published.  The first of the trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was recently released in March of 2010.  Being an independent film, it was a limited release yet saw huge successes at the box office.  Worldwide, the film has grossed over $100 million.  The other two books, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest have also been turned into screenplays and released in certain European countries and will be released elsewhere later this year.  All three books were originally in Swedish and have been translated for further publication and film production in various languages.

In this dark crime thriller, a young, unsuspecting Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) turns out to have impressive computer hacking skills and a tendency for the violent and is recruited by Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to help investigate the death of a woman that occurred 40 years ago.  A string of plot twists and constant suspense will have you on the edge of your seat throughout the movie.

Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist both produced impressive performances in a film that has become more mainstream than many of their previous works.  Swedish born Rapace has starred in a number of independent and foreign films such as White Man’s Blues and The Black Pimpernel. He is also currently filming for The Chinese Man and Abduction.  30-year-old Rapace is also Swedish and an independent film star.  Upcoming roles for this actor include Clean Out, Babycall and Svinalangorna.

As the books of this trilogy seem to be jumping of the shelves, there are high expectations for the last two films of the series.