I'd lost counts of the number of times I'd tried to watch this movie and failed as each time an unforeseen event prevented me from watching it till the very end. So last Saturday, I'd kept my fingers crossed as I tried watching it till the very end & would you believe it, I succeeded at last!
This Spielberg directed, and evergreen Harrison Ford acted two hours of gripping adventure was the 2nd in the Indiana Jones series.
The adventure starts with Jones being chased by a group of Shanghai thugs whom he apparently dodges with the help of his ten-year old side kick Shanghai taxi driver, Short Round. In the precess he is forced to take hostage a nightclub singer Willie Scott. As he escapes by the air route, the pilots turned out to be the henchmen of Lao Che, the crime boss, whom Jones was trying to evade. As the tired passengers sleeps, the pilots leaks the fuel tank and themselves jumps with all the parachutes available and leaves Jones and Co. in the mercy of the Himalayan mountains. Fortunately Willie wakes up and rouses Jones and Round and they manage to jump on an inflated boat moments at the nick of the time. The boat sails along a mountain stream and they reach an Indian village on the foothills of the Himalayas.
Here Jones is requested by the local tribe leaders to recover the lost Shiva Lingam and the kidnapped children from the evil forces residing in the Pankot Palace. As Jones sets on the mission much to the chagrin of Willie, the local guides, in fear of the black forces, escape as they near the Palace. They are warmly received by Chattar Lal, the Prime Minister to the Maharaja of Pankot and get invitation to Royal Dinner. In the dinner the dishes, including live snakes, insects and monkey brains horrifies the guests as well as any of the Indian viewers as it really shows how little Spielberg had researched into the Indian eating habits and surely he relied on some rubbish rumours that are so rampant in the Western world.
In the course of the dinner, Jones questions Chattar Lal about the accusations of the villagers that not only infuruates the latter but the young Maharaja too gets the wind of it and tells Jones that these accusations are quite false. But after the dinner was over, Jones is attacked in his room and evading the same he finds a trapdoor in Willie's room that takes him to the underground where he witnesses black magic being performed by Mola Ram, depited as a follower of Kali who used the kidnapped villagers as offering to the evil. Here also Spielberg has made a grave mistake in depicting Kali as evil and this shows how any blasphemy to the Indian culture doesn't raise even a single eyebrow in the Western world.
As the story rolls on, Jones finds three Shiva Lingams, which contained some stones that glowed when they are brought near one another. But while trying to retrive them, Jones gets caught and Mola forcibly converts him to a follower of evil forces. Now it was left to Short to take matter in his little hands and his quick thinking saves the day and Jones as well who, following a series of encounters manages to recover the Shiva Lingams and the kidnapped villagers and bring them back to the village.
The film was beautifully shot and the car chase in the Shanghai street seems to the best part of it. If India could have been a bit truthfully portraied, I could have appreciated the movie even more.
This Spielberg directed, and evergreen Harrison Ford acted two hours of gripping adventure was the 2nd in the Indiana Jones series.
The adventure starts with Jones being chased by a group of Shanghai thugs whom he apparently dodges with the help of his ten-year old side kick Shanghai taxi driver, Short Round. In the precess he is forced to take hostage a nightclub singer Willie Scott. As he escapes by the air route, the pilots turned out to be the henchmen of Lao Che, the crime boss, whom Jones was trying to evade. As the tired passengers sleeps, the pilots leaks the fuel tank and themselves jumps with all the parachutes available and leaves Jones and Co. in the mercy of the Himalayan mountains. Fortunately Willie wakes up and rouses Jones and Round and they manage to jump on an inflated boat moments at the nick of the time. The boat sails along a mountain stream and they reach an Indian village on the foothills of the Himalayas.
Here Jones is requested by the local tribe leaders to recover the lost Shiva Lingam and the kidnapped children from the evil forces residing in the Pankot Palace. As Jones sets on the mission much to the chagrin of Willie, the local guides, in fear of the black forces, escape as they near the Palace. They are warmly received by Chattar Lal, the Prime Minister to the Maharaja of Pankot and get invitation to Royal Dinner. In the dinner the dishes, including live snakes, insects and monkey brains horrifies the guests as well as any of the Indian viewers as it really shows how little Spielberg had researched into the Indian eating habits and surely he relied on some rubbish rumours that are so rampant in the Western world.
In the course of the dinner, Jones questions Chattar Lal about the accusations of the villagers that not only infuruates the latter but the young Maharaja too gets the wind of it and tells Jones that these accusations are quite false. But after the dinner was over, Jones is attacked in his room and evading the same he finds a trapdoor in Willie's room that takes him to the underground where he witnesses black magic being performed by Mola Ram, depited as a follower of Kali who used the kidnapped villagers as offering to the evil. Here also Spielberg has made a grave mistake in depicting Kali as evil and this shows how any blasphemy to the Indian culture doesn't raise even a single eyebrow in the Western world.
As the story rolls on, Jones finds three Shiva Lingams, which contained some stones that glowed when they are brought near one another. But while trying to retrive them, Jones gets caught and Mola forcibly converts him to a follower of evil forces. Now it was left to Short to take matter in his little hands and his quick thinking saves the day and Jones as well who, following a series of encounters manages to recover the Shiva Lingams and the kidnapped villagers and bring them back to the village.
The film was beautifully shot and the car chase in the Shanghai street seems to the best part of it. If India could have been a bit truthfully portraied, I could have appreciated the movie even more.
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