Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz
Story: George Lucas
Starring: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Amrish Puri, Philip Stone & Ke Huy Quan
Released: 1984
Production: Lucasfilm Ltd/Paramount Pictures
The Temple Of Doom trailer went with the tag line... If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones. Well that's exactly what us kids got in the second instalment of the Indiana Jones saga in theatres back in 1984. The story kicks off in a Shanghai nightclub where Indy is double crossed by a group of Japanese gangsters over a simple trade that quickly turns the nightclub into a chaotic brawl, with Indy narrowly avoiding death by poison thanks to the help of club singer Willie Scott.
Fleeing Club Obi Wan in the getaway car driven by Indy's sidekick short round. The three characters soon find themselves flying out of Shanghai shortly followed by an improvised escape from a sabotaged plane and ending up stranded in India. Its not long before the true darkness of the village people's plight is explained to Indiana Jones and his companions sending them on a journey to Pankot Palace to retrieve the lifeline of the village people's existence along with their future.
The Temple Of Doom was a highly anticipated sequel to the ground braking first instalment - Raiders Of The Lost Ark only to fall short and be widely panned by critics and viewers alike generally due to the dark tone of the material represented. As this movie had George Lucas as main collaborator with Director Steven Spielberg it was inevitable that the story would take a more threatening path than the original due to Lucas's success with The Empire Strikes Back. Dramatic as it is to pit the hero against a black magic cult performing human sacrifice and enslaving children it still worked as a roller coaster of an action adventure allowing Harrison Ford to flesh out the character of Indiana Jones with both shades of light and dark coupled with wry wit and humor.
Although Raiders Of The Lost Ark is obviously a far better and accomplished film, Temple Of Doom turned out to be a perfect follow up. It had everything a young kid came to expect from such a collective of creative professionals in their prime, from the musical inspired opening scene to the stand off in the temple through the mine cart escape to the rope bridge showdown it was pure escapism still delivering the goods today as a matinee movie.
The original trilogy is available in DVD format as a box set including a bonus disc of features including documentaries, photo galleries and trailers. 2008's Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is also available on Blu-Ray. Speilberg has recently confirmed that the original series will be coming to shiny HD soon, after Lucas has completed the Star Wars Blu-Rays which were released last September.
Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom
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