Jack, un professeur d'archéologie renommé du musée de l'armée de terre cuite de Xi'an, s'associe à la jeune professeur indienne Ashmita de l'Institut national des musées du Rajasthan pour rechercher le trésor perdu du Magadha au Tibet. Leur équipe découvre le trésor sous un lac gelé grâce aux moyens modernes. Ils sont cependant interrompus par un groupe de mercenaires dirigé par Randall qui leur vole le trésor et les laisse enfermer. Dans la confusion, Jones - un membre de l'équipe de Jack qui est plus un chasseur de trésor qu'un archéologue - s'enfuit avec un diamant. Jack et Ashmita parviennent finalement à s'échapper de la caverne glacée.
Blue-collar mechanic Carter Chambers (Freeman) and billionaire hospital magnate Edward Cole (Nicholson) meet for the first time in the hospital after both have been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Although Edward is reluctant to share a room with Carter, complaining that he "looks half-dead already", they become friends as they undergo their respective treatments.
Austrian mountaineers Heinrich Harrer (Pitt) and Peter Aufschnaiter (Thewlis) are part of a team attempting to summit Nanga Parbat in British India (present-day Pakistan). When World War II begins in 1939, they are arrested by British Indian authorities and imprisoned in a POW camp in Dehradun in the Himalayan foothills, in the present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand. Harrer's pregnant wife, Ingrid, sends him divorce papers from Austria.
In a temple in an unknown location in northeastern Nepal, a young boy with mystical abilities — the Golden Child — receives badges of station and demonstrates his power to the monks of the temple by reviving a dead eastern rosella, which becomes a constant companion. However, a band of villains led by a mysterious man, Sardo Numspa (Charles Dance), breaks into the hidden temple, slaughters the monks and abducts the boy.
In a technologically advanced 1939, the zeppelin Hindenburg III arrives in New York City, mooring atop the Empire State Building. Aboard the airship is Dr. Jorge Vargas (Julian Curry), a scientist who arranges for a package containing two vials to be delivered to Dr. Walter Jennings (Trevor Baxter). Moments later, as the courier looks back while leaving with the vials, Dr. Vargas is nowhere to be seen.
The film has a straightforward chronology with events spanning from 1937 to 1959; the setting is Tibet, except for brief sequences in China and India. It begins with the search for the 14th mindstream emanation of the Dalai Lama. After a vision by Reting Rinpoche (the regent of Tibet) several lamas disguised as servants discover a promising candidate: a child born to a farming family in the province of Amdo, near the Chinese border.
Tibetan Buddhist monks from a monastery in Bhutan, led by Lama Norbu (Ruocheng Ying), are searching for a child who is the rebirth of a great Buddhist teacher, Lama Dorje (Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen). Lama Norbu and his fellow monks believe they have found a candidate for the child in whom Lama Dorje is reborn: an American boy named Jesse Conrad (Alex Wiesendanger), the young son of an architect and a teacher who live in Seattle. The monks come to Seattle in order to meet the boy.
Octobre 2001. Au monastère de Kopan, au Népal, on procède à l'incinération du lama Geshe Konchog, révéré comme un maître spirituel par les bouddhistes tibétains. Au cours de la cérémonie, plusieurs signes - perles réchappées des flammes, trace dans les cendres... - indiquent qu'il n'aurait pas définitivement quitté ce monde. Son fidèle disciple Tenzin Zopa est bouleversé. À son chagrin s'ajoute le poids d'une lourde responsabilité. C'est à lui qu'incombe la mission de trouver l'enfant en qui son maître spirituel s'est réincarné.
A gang of bandits with their leader Jalan (Milind Soman) who have chosen to live an independent life free from oppression amid the wilderness live by plundering the travelers of the Silk Route of their merchandise. They have their own rules and sense of self-righteousness. While divesting victims of their valuables one day, they come across a demonic mask which intrigues Jalan. There amid the chaos, the bandits are suddenly caught unaware by the approach of a woman who calls herself Ushna (Mylene Jampanoi) who claims to know Jalan, having seen him in her dreams and asks him to let her come along. Jalan, in spite of his companions' warnings includes the woman in their band as he is already mesmerized by her unearthly beauty and mysterious and uncanny aura.
Milly (Anne Suzuki) is a soldier from 2084, where humanity is on the verge of extinction because of the "Daggra", an alien race. In mankind's final stronghold in Tibet, Milly leaps into a newly built time portal just before the fortress is overrun. The portal sends her to 2002, where her mission is to kill the first Daggra, who faked a crash landing, and stop him from signaling his invasion fleet.
Karma, a young Tibetan woman from New York City comes to Dharamsala, the exile headquarters of the Dalai Lama in India, in search of her roots. She is making a documentary film about former political prisoners who have escaped from Tibet. One of her interviewees is the recently arrived Dhondup. He reveals to her that his dying mother had made him promise to deliver an old charm box to an exile Tibetan named Loga, and appeals to her for help in locating the man.
A girl, a boy and an old cinema technician tell stories every night in a small theater. Before each story, the boy and the girl decide, in accordance with the old technician, they will play the characters in the story they will interpret, they also choose a time and a country as well as costumes through documentation the technician brings them, and make clothing and accessories with a computer-controlled machine. They then perform the story on stage.
Before returning to England to become the new Foreign Secretary, writer, soldier and diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) has one last task in 1935 China: to rescue 90 Westerners in the city of Baskul. He flies out with the last few evacuees, just ahead of armed revolutionaries.