1935. At a swanky nightclub in Hong Kong, Indiana Jones confronts Lao Che, a Chinese gangster, for a trade - a reward in exchange for the ashes of a Ming dynasty emperor. The gangster's sons, however, won't let Indy get out of the trade alive, and a violent struggle ensues that snares up the gangster's moll, torch singer Wilhemina Scott. Indy and Willie escape with Indy's pre-teen sidekick, Short Round, and fly out of Hong Kong - unaware their plane belongs to Lao Che and the two pilots are ordered to bail out over India. Indy, Willie, and Shorty manage to escape and wind up being greeted by a village elder who shows them the ruins of his village - ruins caused by the theft of three stones of great magic power, taken to a gigantic mountaintop palace. The palace, however, belongs to a peaceful young Indian prince who assures that no such action occurred from his palace. Indy, however, is attacked in his bedroom and finds a vast underground system of caverns that lead to an ancient terrorist cult long thought dead, a cult that has kidnapped the children of the village and is using them to dig for the magic stones. When Indy and his friends are captured they are to be sacrificed to the pit of molten rock, but a violent showdown begins that erupts into a savage brawl, gunfire, a mad minecar pursuit, the collapse of an undcerground dam, and a showdown at a rope bridge that threatens to kill Indy, his friends, and the cult.
