Hong Kong sci-fi film Back to the Past rakes in record HK$45 million in first week
Time travel movie beats A Guilty Conscience and The Last Dance to become highest-grossing film in opening week, amid box office gloom in city
Hong Kong science fiction blockbuster Back to the Past has overtaken A Guilty Conscience and The Last Dance to become the highest-grossing film in its opening week.
Industry body Hong Kong Box Office Limited on Tuesday said that Back to the Past, starring Louis Koo Tin-lok and Raymond Lam Fung, had earned a cumulative HK$45.4 million (US$5.8 million) at the box office in Hong Kong and Macau as of Monday.
Hong Kong cinema-goers accounted for more than HK$42.8 million of the total.
“This figure has broken past records, making it the all-time opening week box office champion for both Hong Kong and Chinese-language films,” it said, adding that revenue was expected to climb even further after the opening week.
It overtook the 2023 courtroom drama A Guilty Conscience and The Last Dance, a 2024 family drama set around the city’s funeral trade, which grossed over HK$43.4 million and HK$38.9 million, respectively, in their opening weeks. Both starred actor and comedian Dayo Wong Tze-wah.
Back to the Past has conquered box office charts since it opened on December 31. It set a record for the first-day performance of a local or mainland Chinese film by grossing HK$10.91 million on its opening day.
It ranks No 2 on the all-time list behind Avengers: Endgame, released in 2019, which recorded HK$20.9 million on its opening day.