Shanghai (1935)

Shanghai in 1935 frames Indiana Jones's deadly nightclub negotiation. Lao Che's ballroom packs with smoke-hazed tables of caviar and champagne where Indy swaps Nurhachi's ashes amid rising tension. Poison slips into drinks; Chen shoots Wu Han dead. Indy ignites a skewer fight, rolls a gong as shield through gunfire, and crashes stained-glass windows with Willie to flee. The city breeds black-market deals and warlord schemes that trap Indy in rivalries.

2 events

2 rich involvements

Detailed Involvements

Events with rich location context

S1E1 · RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

Lecture Hall Briefing — The Staff of Ra and the Ark

Shanghai is verbally flagged on the communique (General Tengtu Hok) as an international node holding part of the headpiece, signaling the multinational scale of the artifact hunt and expanding the theater of operations.

Atmosphere

Mentioned as distant and geopolitically complex—a port city tied to black-market and military dealings.

Functional Role

Foreign locus referenced as a custody point for artifact components.

Symbolic Significance

Represents the global diffusion of artifact pieces and geopolitical entanglement.

Access Restrictions

Remote to the classroom; likely contested and requiring diplomatic or covert access.

Referenced as associated with General Tengtu Hok Implied bustle and international intrigue

S1E1 · RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

Commission Accepted — Indy Declares the Race

Shanghai is invoked as Indy's immediate destination to recover the piece from General Hok; it functions as the first physical pivot in the international race motif and establishes the geographic scope of the mission.

Atmosphere

Not onscreen in this scene; suggested as a dangerous, exotic, and politically entangled city.

Functional Role

Target destination and staging point for the initial leg of Indy's expedition.

Symbolic Significance

Symbolizes entry into the global, wartime underworld where local warlords and foreign powers complicate scholarly pursuits.

Mentioned verbally as 'Shanghai' — conjures crowded port city, black market networks Associated with General Hok (the Wild Boar) and foreign entanglements

Events at This Location

Everything that happens here

S1E1 · RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

Lecture Hall Briefing — The Staff of Ra and the Ark

In Indy’s lecture hall a routine academic exchange becomes a wartime summons: Colonel Musgrove and Major Eaton disclose a intercepted Nazi communique linking Tanis to a ‘headpiece’ and the Staff …

S1E1 · RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

Commission Accepted — Indy Declares the Race

Marcus Brody bursts into Indy’s study with a lucrative government commission: recover the Ark of the Covenant. Indy accepts immediately, insisting the Museum will keep the Ark and laying out …