Hong Kong Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life is a Hong Kong–Japan co-production — one of only a handful of such cross-border film titles indexed here.
Synopsis
Lara Croft is tasked by MI6 to find the mythological Pandora's Box, an object from ancient legends which supposedly contains one of the deadliest plagues on Earth, before evil Nobel Prize-winning scientist turned bioterrorist Jonathan Reiss can get his hands on it. Lara ventures to an underwater temple in search of a magical luminous orb, the key to finding Pandora's Box, but after securing it, it is promptly stolen by the villainous leader of a Chinese crime syndicate who in turn plans to sell the orb to Reiss. Lara must recover the box before evil mastermind Reiss uses it to construct a weapon of catastrophic capabilities.
Audience Engagement
3,963 audience reviews — more than 99% of Hong Kong films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 92th percentile among Hong Kong films.
Hong Kong × Japan Co-Production
Other Hong Kong×Japan titles
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Other Titles From Paramount
Action + Adventure in Hong Kong
81 Hong Kong titles in our catalog blend the Action and Adventure genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life itself).
The 2002–2004 Hong Kong Window
In the crowded 2002-2004 Hong Kong release window, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life sits at #36 of 50. The leaderboard below contextualises its neighbours.
The 2000s Hong Kong Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 2000s in Hong Kong, 146 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life premiered alongside 16 others.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 57m runtime, production spent $812K per minute on screen and earned $1.4M per minute back.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 16 other Hong Kong films in 2003.
The 549th Hong Kong title from Hong Kong we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1955).
Our Hong Kong catalog contains 836 titles in total (828 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- archaeologist · 5
- underwater · 4
- great wall of china · 3
- ex-lover · 3
- scuba diving · 3
- archeology · 2
- medallion · 2
- greece · 2
- alexander the great · 2
- kenya · 2
- mi6 · 1
- antidote · 1
- riddle · 1
- kazakhstan · 1
- jet ski · 1
- pandora's box · 1
- shanghai · 26
- motorcycle · 22
- scientist · 20
- prisoner · 14
- earthquake · 14
- mercenary · 13
- helicopter · 10
- treasure hunt · 9
- biological weapon · 7
- chinese mafia · 7
- china · 127
- based on video game · 90
- hong kong · 73
- female protagonist · 33
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #647 of 836 Hong Kong films indexed here (23rd percentile by TMDB audience score).
Rating is -0.6 points below the Hong Kong average of 6.3/10.
Among Hong Kong Action productions specifically: #418 of 516 (top 81%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | Hong Kong |
|---|---|
| All Production Countries | Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, United Kingdom, United States of America |
| Original Language | En |
| Spoken Languages | English, Mandarin |
| Production Companies | Paramount, Mutual Film Company, Lawrence Gordon Productions, Eidos Interactive, TOHO-TOWA |
| Runtime | 1h 57m |
| Release Date | July 21, 2003 |
| IMDb | tt0325703 |