Movies - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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	Movies - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, first released in the United States on May 23, 1984, is a prequel to the hugely successful action movie Raiders of the Lost Ark
. This film is the second released, though the twenty-third chronologically, in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

Like the first, it starred Harrison Ford as Jones, was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on an original story by George Lucas. Many members of the original crew returned, including cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, editor Michael Kahn and composer John Williams. The film is much darker in tone than its predecessor (a fact which Lucas attributes to the messy divorce he was going through during the film's production), and has been criticised for being overly violent, scary, relying on "gross-out" thrills, and being a highly fictionalized depiction of Indian culture. When making the next film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
, Spielberg was reported to have apologized for the lesser quality of Temple of Doom. However, the film was always intended to be a horror movie as well as a remake of elements of Gunga Din
(1939).

Plot summary

The film is set in 1935 — a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film opens with Indiana Jones in a Shanghai nightclub attempting to trade the remains of Nurhaci for a large diamond with a gangster named Lao Che. When the deal goes bad, Indy and the club's singer Willie escape the pursuing criminals in a car driven by Short Round, a child ally of Indy. They board a cargo plane not knowing that it is owned by Lao Che.

As Indy, Willie, and Short Round nap during the flight, the pilots dump the fuel and parachute out of the plane. Indy and the others use an emergency raft to safely descend from the plane's altitude, eventually arriving near a village in India. The people there enlist his help in retrieving a sacred stone, the Sankara stone or the Siva linga, and the community's children from the forces of an evil palace nearby.

Initially the palace seems normal enough; they act insulted by his questions about the village's claims. Indy is later attacked in his room by an assassin, which leads to him to find a secret door in Willie's room. Beneath the palace is a vast underground chamber where the village rock and two more are held by Thuggees. The cult (who worship the goddess Kali with human sacrifice) uses the village's children to dig for the remaining rocks within the mines of the palace, in hope that with all of them they can rule the world.

Indy, Willie, and Short Round are captured by the Thuggee and separated: Indy sides with the Thuggee after being forced to drink the "blood of Kali Ma", Willie is kept as a human sacrifice, and Short Round is put in the mines alongside the village children. Short Round escapes and helps Indy return to his normal self, which allows him to save Willie, take the Sankara stones, and free the children. In the fight to escape the palace, Indy loses all but one of the stones. They triumphantly return to the village with their sacred stone and their children.

Cast listing

Production

Besides Ford, the actors included Kate Capshaw (Spielberg's second wife, whom he first met while casting this film), Ke Huy Quan, Amrish Puri, Roy Chiao as Lao Che, and a cameo by Dan Aykroyd. Indiana Jones artist Drew Struzan created the film's distinctive artwork. Most of the filming was done on location in Sri Lanka and at Borehamwood Studios in Hertfordshire, England.

Ratings

Some fairly gruesome scenes in Temple of Doom, as well as other PG-rated films of the time such as Gremlins caused a significant public outcry. Spielberg spoke to the MPAA about creating a new rating covering the middle ground between a clear PG and a clear R that his films often found themselves on. This led to the creation of a new rating category: PG-13.

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