FAQ

"Flickan som lekte med elden", and this one really does mean "the girl who played with fire".

Ironically, using the proper translation in this case makes the commercially-motivated mistranslations stand out more.

Antisocial computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) returns to Sweden from the Cayman Islands and finds herself being framed for the murder of guardian Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) as well as two researchers, Mia Bergman (Jennie Silfverhjelm) and Dag Svensson (Hans Christian Thulin), who were investigating prostitution and sex trafficking in Sweden. While keeping herself hidden, Lisbeth tries to track down the elusive "Zala", the man Lisbeth suspects of being the murderer. While the police search for Lisbeth, Millennium journalist Mikael "Micke" Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), who believes in Lisbeth's innocence, also tries to locate her and Zala (Georgi Staykov).

The movie is based on Flickan som lekte med elden (2006), published in English as The Girl Who Played with Fire, a crime novel by the Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson [1954-2004]. It is the second novel in his Millennium trilogy, preceded by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish: Män som hatar kvinnor) (2005) and followed by The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Swedish: Luftslottet som sprängdes) (2007). The movie version of The Girl Who Played with Fire is preceded by The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009) and followed by The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009).

Lisbeth has been abroad for approximately one year following her involvement in the Wennerström affair (portrayed in the first movie). She stated she was in Australia, New Zealand and lastly, the Caribbean.

The book is over 700 pages long. Out of necessity, the movie leaves out many details and subplots, sticking mainly to the gist of the story—Micke Blomqvist's search for Lisbeth, who is in hiding because she's been implicated in several murders. This movie also relies on the previous movie to have already explained such things as why Lisbeth was in the Caymans, why "I am a sadist pig and a rapist" was tattooed on Nils Bjurman's stomach, how Blomqvist knows Lisbeth, how Lisbeth gets her money, etc.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire are different stories and can be seen separately, like episodes in a procedural show. However, viewers who have seen both movies strongly recommend seeing the movies in order, because they are sequential. The first movie provides background on the characters as well as details of the relationships between Lisbeth, Mikael, and Bjurman.

No particular reason is given in the movie, which opens with Lisbeth having bad dreams about Nils Bjurman while she is living in the Caymans. She then hacks into his email and finds that Bjurman made an appointment with a doctor to have his tattoo removed. Following that are shown scenes of her packing her clothes and making arrangements with her investor to purchase an apartment in Stockholm. Finally, she hops on an SAS flight to Sweden. The first thing she does upon her return is to break into Bjurman's apartment and check his assessment report on her. When she finds his reports to be empty, she uses his own gun to remind him of his promise to file glowing reports on her each month. Once again, she reminds him that, if he doesn't file the reports, she will release the film she made of him raping her to every newspaper in Sweden. She also informs him that, if he ever has the tattoo removed, she will carve another one in his forehead. From the opening sequence of events, it can be assumed that her purpose was to assure herself that Bjurman was keeping up his end of the bargain and to prevent him from having the tattoo removed.

In the Wennerström affair, which is the topic of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth transferred several million kronor from Wennerström's account to an account she set up in the Cayman Islands, enough money that Lisbeth can now consider herself 'independently wealthy.'

Lisbeth's father had a habit of beating her mother senseless. One day in 1993, when Lisbeth was 12 years old, she found her mother lying unconscious on the floor. Lisbeth took matters into her own hands, tossed gasoline on her father, and torched him. He survived, but Lisbeth was committed to a psychiatric institution for juveniles. Lisbeth's stubbornness led her to be uncooperative which was then interpreted as mentally incompetent.

The gun belonged to Nils Bjurman, Lisbeth's lawyer-guardian who raped her in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. When Lisbeth returned from the Cayman Islands, she paid him a visit in the middle of the night, searched his apartment, and found the gun in his desk. She used it to remind him about filing glowing assessment reports each month and to warn him about having the tattoo removed. She then set the gun on his dresser and left his apartment. That's how her fingerprints got on the gun. Zala's muscle, Ronald Niedermann (Micke Spreitz), later uses the same gun to kill Bjurman, Dag, and Mia.

Niedermann was acting on Zala's orders. Mia and Dag were killed because they were about to print an exposé on sex trafficking, which would have implicated Zala. Bjurman was killed because Zala wanted the police reports on Lisbeth and didn't want to be bothered with having to find her and get the DVD she made of Bjurman's rape before Bjurman would give him the reports.

They didn't. Their business with Bjurman, Mia, and Dag was separate from their concerns about Lisbeth. Neither Zala nor Niedermann knew that Lisbeth's fingerprints were on Bjurman's gun, thanks to her using it on a previous night to chastize Bjurman for not filing reports of her good behavior to the Guardianship Agency. When Lisbeth's fingerprints were found on the gun, however, Zala was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He knew that, with Lisbeth's previous record, the police would pin the murders on her and not bother to dig any deeper.

"Congenital analgesia", as suffered by Ronald Niedermann, is a condition in which children are born with an insensitivity to pain, the body's natural response to harmful stimuli, leading to such insults as broken bones, biting off bits of the tongue, and sticking knives through flesh. Current research suggests that the cause may be genetic and directed at the nervous system. It's this condition that makes Niedermann such a dangerous opponent. He is a very tall, muscular man who doesn't feel pain when his victims try to fight him off. He just keeps going and going...

Zala shoots Lisbeth three times, then he and Niedermann bury her and leave her for dead. The next day, Zala goes out to the barn to close a door that has swung open and finds a bloody-faced Lisbeth standing there with an axe, having managed to dig her way out of her grave by using her cigarette case. Without saying a word, she whacks him in the head. When Zala falls to the ground, she whacks him again, then grabs his gun. Zala's screams alert Niedermann, who comes running out to the barn. Lisbeth shoots at him but misses. She continues to fire at him, but it is unclear as to whether or not any of the bullets have hit her target. Mikael, who has tracked down Niedermann's address, drives up just in time to see Niedermann walking away. Mikael gets out of his car and notices Lisbeth lying on the ground, having crawled out of the barn. Mikael calls for the police and an ambulance. Lisbeth is air-lifted to the hospital.

The movie ends with a cliffhanger in that their fates are not shown. However, since both Niedermann and Zala appear in the third movie, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, it's safe to conclude that they survive.

The extended version is non-qualified for people even consider the theatrical version too long. But then again the extended version might be too short for people who are familiar with the novel because there are still some storylines missing even though the extended version runs approximately 55 minutes longer than the theatrical version.

The Caribbean layover is very short here as well. Nevertheless Lisbeth's teeny lover George has an appearance in the extended version. There are many extensions in the police investigations, e.g. the traitor is in it, too. Most of the new footage is about the conflict between Faste and Sonja. As a result of that, the audience gets at least a slight impression of Miriam's suffering and the malicious champagne is more detailed. Faste interrogates her and due to an alternate shot of the newspaper headline plus the more detailed investigation of Lisbeth's/Miriam's apartment refer to the satanistic girl clique. As far as Lisbeth's innocence is concerned: it's reasonable why investigator Bublanski changes his mind, thanks to two new scenes. In opposite to the Theatrical Version, the Extended Version contains the conversations between Armanskij and Mikael where he realizes the differences in the psychiatric report. Furthermore there are more statements of Palmgren which means more information about Lisbeth's childhood. Another scene implies Lisbeth is responsible for Palgren's recovery. The last issue is a perfect example for new scenes that aren't important for the main plot but for the better characterization.

For the rest one can argue if the extended version fulfills the novel and leaves another impression to the audience. Anyway entire sequences are different here and some of them are split up (but it's also the other way around, some of the sequences are connected in the extended version) or removed. These things are really positive for the introduction of the character Paul the boxer. He doesn't get involved in Miriam's kidnapping out of the blue anymore. There are even more differences throughout the movie.