Get set for a nonstop ride of chills and thrills that will keep you on the edge of your seat for 188 minutes. It opens as archaeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) sits in a 1935 Shanghai nightclub listening to a rendition of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" by pretty American singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). When he is nearly poisoned by the Chinese thugs he has come to see, Indiana grabs Willie and escapes in a getaway car driven by 12-year-old Short Round (Ke Huy Quan), a tough little street survivor. They hop abord an airplane — leaving their enemies in the dust below.

Or so they think. The plane is owned by the thugs, and the pilots take the only parachutes, abandoning the passengers in mid-air. Indy improvises in a manner only James Bond could equal. The three land near an Indian village in the Himalayas where the people are starving. The local priest asks them to retrieve the community's sacred stone and missing children from the Palace of Pankot. Our hero decides to tackle this mission of mercy, realizing it might also bring fame and fortune.

Steven Spielberg directs this crackerjack fantasy adventure story with great dash. At the Palace of Pankot, Indy discovers the revival of an ancient kali cult involving human sacrifice; he also learns that the children are being used as laborers in the maharaja's underground mine. Overcoming one peril after another, Indy, Willie and Short Round call upon large reserves of physical and mental prowess to triumph in the end.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is even more exciting than the first Indy film, Raiders of the Lost Ark.