Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) Film Review

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) Director: Steven Spielberg

“Mola Ram! Prepare to meet Kali… in Hell!”

★★★☆☆

A somewhat jarring tonal shift from Raiders of the Lost Ark (which George Lucas blames on a somewhat nasty divorce he was ensconced in at the time), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom offers a uniquely dark adventure for Indiana Jones. Lawrence Kasdan, the great writer who crafted the scripts for The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, refused to participate in this Indiana Jones sequel because he felt it was wrong for the character and even mean-spirited to the audience. And in some respects he was right –this whole film reeks of anger, bitterness, and the macabre. When it is not overly slapstick and silly, The Temple of Doom is extremely sinister, brutal, and gory. In fact, its many scenes of shocking violence helped to inspire the PG-13 MPAA rating after parents and reviewers complained of its violence (the PG-13 rating was then initiated at Spielberg’s request)

The Temple of Doom is a prequel of sorts, it takes place about one year prior to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark (the year is 1935 in Shanghai). The film opens with a delightful Asian cabaret stage performance of “Anything Goes” before we see Indy donning a white tuxedo a la James Bond at a private club in Shanghai (amusingly called “Club Obi Wan” in a nod to Star Wars). Jones claims to have found the remains of Nurhachi, the first emperor of the Manchu dynasty, which he offers in exchange for a rare diamond from a shady gangster named Lau Che (Roy Chiao) and his sons Chen (Chua Kah Joo) and Kao Kan (Ric Young). Predictably, Jones is double-crossed, and in need of “the poison he just drank…” as his old friend and waiter named Wu Han (David Yip) is shot and killed. In the scuffle, he meets an obnoxious nightclub singer Wilhelmina “Willie” Scott (Kate Capshaw, Spielberg’s soon-to-be-wife) as Jones narrowly escapes an assassination attempt via the streets of Shanghai in the cab of “Short Round” (Ke Huy Quan) and into a small airplane to flee the country. However, Jones is soon double-crossed again by the pilots of the airplane –allies of Lau– as they depart in parachutes and the plane crashes over the Himalayas. Jones, Shorty, and Willie end up falling to the snowy ground in an inflatable raft which eventually leads them to a remote Indian village. This sets up a quest to locate a sacred stone, the “Shiva lingam” stone, which has been stolen by a maharaja along with the children of the village (Jones believes the missing stone is one of the five lost “Sankara Stones” which offer “fortune and glory”). This leads Jones to an Indian palace (Pankot Palace) where he is forced to eat customarily exotic food (like eyeball soup, beetles inside a snake skin, and monkey brains) –but the real shocking bit comes when he discovers a hidden “Thuggee” temple beneath the palace where a blood-drinking, child-enslaving cult is preparing for a human sacrifice using black magic led by Mola Ram (Amrish Puri, a big Bollywood star at the time). The cult undergoes a brutal ceremony which involves ripping a still-beating heart out of a victim’s sternum to honor their god Kali. Jones is then captured and placed into a trance after drinking the blood of Kali, placing in the sleep of Kali Ma. Somehow, Indy recovers himself as well as three of the five sacred stones currently possessed by the Thuggee cult, and Jones escapes from in a wild mine-cart chase sequence as the tunnels are flooded before culminating in a battle over a swinging rope-bridge over a crocodile-filled gorge. In the end, Jones rescues all the kidnapped children and returns them to their village (as well as the “magic rock” with three markings on it).

Unlike the classic cinematic allusions made in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in Temple of Doom we find all manner of exotic racial/ethnic stereotypes blatantly splashed across the screen, as well as a preponderance of mostly annoying characters (especially Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott). Even Spielberg himself has mostly discarded this film, and with good reason. However, I loved the James Bond-influenced plot at the beginning in Shanghai with the “Obi Wan” club and the airplane sequence. But the film runs off the rails as we enter the grotesque, human-sacrificing Thuggee cult which drags on in a dark underground cavern. The Temple of Doom is widely regarded as the worst of the Indiana Jones original trilogy, though I will admit it surely was an unexpected risk for a sequel, but in my view I would much rather watch The Temple of Doom over the pathetic reboot Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008.

Click here to return to my film reviews.

Click here to return to my reviews of the Indiana Jones series.

• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Screenplay: Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz
• Story by: George Lucas
• Produced by: Robert Watts
• Starring:
  • Harrison Ford…..Indiana Jones
  • Kate Capshaw…..Wilhelmina “Willie” Scott, an American nightclub singer in Shanghai (originally from Missouri) who cannot stop shrieking throughout the film.
  • Ke Huy Quan…..Short Round or “Shorty” Indiana’s Chinese sidekick. His parents died when he was four when the Japanese bombed Shanghai. Indiana Jones initially caught him being a pickpocket before they became friends.
  • Amrish Puri…..Mola Ram, a Thuggee priest who performs rites of human sacrifices and devil worship. He is named after an 18th-century Indian painter.
  • Roshan Seth…..Chattar Lal, the Prime Minister of the Maharaja of Pankot.
  • Philip Stone…..Captain Philip Blumburtt, a British Indian Army officer on a routine inspection tour of Pankot Palace and the surrounding area. He assists Indiana by fighting off Thuggee cultists at the bridge with his regiment, the 11th Poona Rifles. His presence in the film offers an interesting subtextual examination of British Imperialism contrasted with native superstitious evil.
  • Roy Chiao…..Lao Che, a Shanghai crime boss.
• Cinematography by: Douglas Slocombe
• Edited by: Michael Kahn
• Music by: John Williams
• Production Company: Lucasfilm Ltd.
• Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
• Other Facts:
  • Inspired by Gunga Din, George Lucas wanted to set an Indiana Jones film in India.
  • This film was barred from being filmed in India due to cultural offense. It was blocked in India upon release, but the ban has since been lifted.
  • The Temple of Doom is partly responsible for the rise of the PG-13 rating.
  • This film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.