One Cool Group’s Back To The Past, starring Louis Koo and Raymond Lam, brought some much-needed cheer to the Hong Kong box office on New Year’s Eve, grossing a record-breaking $1.48m (HK$11.54m) on its opening day.
The strong opening placed the film at number seven in the year-end chart of Hong Kong films, according to local industry body Hong Kong Box Office, just on the strength of a single day’s release (December 31).
The film went on to gross $5.4m (HK$42.36m) over its opening weekend, which would have made it the biggest local film of 2025 if the Hong Kong Box Office chart included revenue from 2026. It also grossed $24m (RMB78.6m) on its opening weekend in mainland China, according to Artisan Gateway figures.
Continuing the story from a top-rating 2001 TV series, the film follows a modern-day cop (Koo) who is pulled back to the Qin Dynasty to help the Emperor (Lam) defeat another time-travelling usurper.
The film is directed by Ng Yuen-fai and Jack Lai with VFX carried out by the same team that worked on 2022 sci-fi hit Warriors Of Future, also directed by Ng and starring Koo.
Hong Kong Box Office reported that the film scored the biggest opening day of all time for a Hong Kong film, ahead of The Last Dance ($958,000) and Cold War 2 ($700,000). It was also the biggest opening day for a Chinese-language film, ahead of The Last Dance ($958,000) and Ne Zha 2 ($856,000). It also scored the highest opening day in 2025 amongst both local and foreign movies.
The film brought a long overdue boost to the Hong Kong and Macau box office, which was down 15% in 2025 to $155m (HK$1.21bn) after a slide of 6% the previous year, according to Hong Kong Box Office figures. Japanese anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie was the highest-grossing film overall last year, pulling in $13.94m, followed by F1: The Movie and Zootopia 2. The release of Avatar: Fire And Ash has been postponed in Hong Kong due to the Tai Po fire tragedy.
Looking at figures between January 1 to December 31, 2025, local animation Another World was the highest grossing local film with box office of $1.97m (HK$15.36m). By comparison, local film The Last Dance was the highest-grossing film overall in 2024, grossing more than $18m.
