lara croft: tomb raider lara croft: tomb raider
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Tomb Raider 2 - Locations: From Greece to China
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 tomb raider special
4 Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
4 Tomb Raider: Lara Croft (2001)
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 In the course of a six-month global shoot, the "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" cast and crew packed their bags several times to travel far from the company's home base, Pinewood Studios in leafy Buckinghamshire, just outside London. Production started in Greece, then ventured to Wales, moved on to Africa to discover Kenya and Tanzania, and continued on to Hong Kong and mainland China.
The curtain raiser for the film took place on the paradise island of Santorini, in Greece. Colonized by the Minoans in 3000 B.C., the volcanic island erupted in 1450 B.C., forming Santorini's crescent shape. In fact, the island is widely believed to be a candidate for the lost kingdom of Atlantis, making it that much more an appropriate place to film a Lara Croft adventure. Named Thira by the Dorians when they settled in the eighth century B.C., Santorini is a favored holiday destination, a stunning island of white villages clinging to volcanic cliffs above black sand beaches.
Back in the UK, the production crew prepared for their second location, in the principality of Wales, where scenes would be filmed in the mountains of Snowdonia. Though the location in North Wales sported sophisticated facilities, unfortunately cell phones frequently hit dead zones, making communication during filming that much more difficult.
For the purpose of "The Cradle of Life," Wales doubled as China, and the construction team built a wonderfully convincing Chinese village by a picturesque lake, with a traditional water mill for an authentic Asian feel. Extras for scenes shot here were culled from the local Chinese populations as far afield as Liverpool.
One of the toughest sequences filmed in Wales took place in a forbidding slate quarry. This featured a stomach-churning fight scene in which Angelina Jolie and Gerard Butler, as Lara Croft and Terry Sheridan, attempt a daring escape from their Chinese captors upside down! With their guns blazing, on a rig that drops them approximately 150 feet down a sheer slate mountain, the actors - not stunt doubles plunged right into the perilous scene, while director Jan De Bont captured the dramatic moment as the ground rushed toward them.
Next, the cast and crew geared up for the "Tomb Raider" African adventure. After landing in Kenya, the production traveled from one side of the country to another, filming in the famed Rift Valley, game reserves, remote hideaways and busy Nairobi thoroughfares.
Situated on the equator, Kenya has the second highest mountain in Africa. Rising from a natural environment of exceptional beauty, the snow-tipped peaks of Mount Kenya add to the country's dramatically diverse geography seen in the film, including Desert Rose, a magical and very exclusive hideaway near Lake Turkana. In this region, many of the African natives have never seen anyone outside their village, let alone a film crew from a whole world away.
For "The Cradle of Life," members of the Pokot tribe were recruited to play a mysterious tribe that Lara Croft discovers in Africa. The Pokot come from a small village called Loruk, near Lake Baringo in northwest Kenya. A nomadic people, they wear simple traditional clothing made of goatskin, and in their region, there are approximately 20,000 Pokot. Most have never seen a film, and only a few, who live in nearby towns with electricity, have even seen television. Their interpreter had heard of the Internet, but did not have any idea how it worked, and the 80 tribe members who were finally chosen to be in the film were allowed to appear only by permission from the tribal chief.
The village location for the "The Cradle of Life" is located in Hell's Gate National Park, near Naivasha, in the Great Rift Valley. The most recent of Kenya's National Parks, created in 1984, it contains a wide variety of wildlife including cheetahs, zebras, leopards, giraffes, warthogs, buffaloes and a variety of antelopes.
During colonial times, Naivasha was a highly desirable place for a country retreat. These days, some of this fertile land is used for highly productive flower farms, growing glorious roses that are airfreighted overseas. Hell's Gate is the first National Park on the continent used for filming, and once scenes were completed there, the company boarded small planes to fly to its next location, Amboseli National Park, which provides a spectacular backdrop for Africa's highest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro, standing on the park's southern boundary.
During the time spent in Kenya, careful negotiations were going on between the production and the authorities to get permission for a reduced unit to fly to neighboring Tanzania to film on an active volcano, known to the local Masai as Ol Doinyo Lengai, which means "The Mountain of God." In 1983, this same volcano erupted furiously, completely obliterating the surrounding vegetation. In fact, small eruptions still occur all the time, and one even happened the night before the production flew in from Kenya to film. The vegetation has since returned, but not to a very great extent and no one is sure when the volcano will erupt again. The altitude of this active volcano reaches 9,650 feet above sea level, high enough for some people to experience headaches, tiredness, dizziness and shortness of breath, making filming there certainly an arduous and "breathtaking" experience.
Back in England, the cast and crew moved to Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. This is the ancestral home of the Earls of Salisbury, a prominent aristocratic family who, over many generations, has been closely associated with politics and the crown. In modern times, Hatfield House, still the home of the Salisbury family, has opened its doors to films, functions and the public.
In the first "Tomb Raider," the exterior of Hatfield House was used as Lara Croft's home, Croft Manor. This time around, several interiors of Croft Manor were also filmed within these walls, as when Lara stick-fights with Hillary (Christopher Barrie) along the length of a stately library.
Meanwhile, at Pinewood Studios, set construction was reaching its zenith. The Luna Temple was rising on the 007 stage, as was Dr. Reiss' laboratory, a stunning construction of high tech steel and glass. Also on the same stage was the Petrified Forest, a sinister gray environment with gnarled tree stumps and impossibly stunted branches, where Lara and Kosa (Djimon Hounsou) see their enemies experience the wrath of the Shadow Warriors.
It was on `A' Stage at Pinewood Studios that the art department welcomed the arrival of the Terracotta Army from China. Five authentic first generation molds of the original Terracotta Soldiers of Xian had been purchased from the only exporter licensed by the Chinese government to deal in these rare and cherished artifacts.
Once the Terracotta Soldiers arrived at Pinewood, additional molds were made and eventually 60 soldiers, all slightly different, were positioned in the cave set, ready for their discovery by Lara Croft. Here the tomb raider takes on Chen Lo (Simon Yam) for a fight of awesome proportions that sees her running across the heads of the warriors, as Chen Lo pursues her with his sword. It is a battle fought with cunning and expertise, and shows Chen Lo that his adversary is no ordinary woman.
The film's final location was Hong Kong, involving a reduced unit plus Angelina Jolie and Gerard Butler. Like no other city on earth, Hong Kong is an exotic fusion of West and East, and its world is noise, activity, unfamiliar food and language. Mixed in with the unfamiliar sites are familiar icons. For example, monolithic skyscrapers are wedged between squatter huts, Christian churches stand next to Taoist and Buddhist temples and minimalist fusion restaurants serve consumers beside noodle shops and food stalls. The meeting of these two very different worlds makes for a thrilling adventure of color, aroma, taste and sensation.
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