Journey of Radiance is the fifth chapter in the complete Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and the last to feature Corey Carrier in the title role. I would have thought the previous chapter, 'Travels with Father' would have been a better way to end this particular cycle, as it was filmed almost 5 years later than the Benares and Peking episodes that make up this collection, but the powers at Lucasfilm didn't seem to think so. Continuity wise there are a couple of questions raised: Indy gives his new friend Krishnamurthi a baseball card of Ty Cobb. But didn't he already give away all his cards to Tolstoy in the first half of the previous chapter? On the other hand, he does get to speak some Greek, indicating that the other half of 'Travels with Father' has already occurred. Benares and Peking both move at a very slow pace (even by Carrier status) but if you're willing to spare the time and immerse yourself in a spiritual and emotional journey, this one is quite satisfying. If not, you'd better skip the Carrier cycle altogether and start with the next chapter, 'Springbreak Adventure'.
While visiting the holy city of Benares, Indy meets Jiddu Krishnamurthi and joins the Indian boy and his friends for a game of baseball, not realizing the boys are playing cricket. At the time, the Theosophy movement had chosen Krishnamurthi to be the new world leader and possible messiah. Notice that one of the movement's sponsors is a certain Mr. Richard McCallum from Edinburgh. Is this a nod to producer Rick McCallum or his father perhaps? Krishnamurthi begins to explain to Indy about all the different religions that are represented in the Holy City. They converse in very varied and beautiful locations, and the editing makes it seem as if they speak every couple of lines in another location. Meanwhile, the episode also focuses on Indy's tutor, Helen Seymour, who is very skeptical about the movement's intentions and tries to find proof against Society leader Charles Leadbeater. It is no small feat of writer Jonathan Hensleigh (who is better known for writing action movies) to manage to be informative without being controversial with such a touchy subject. As with every one of these 'chapters', the bookends featuring George Hall as 93 year old Indy are sorely missed as he gave some useful further information on what happened to Krishnamurthi. Still, I suppose that's why they spend so many years developing the 94 documentaries that come with the series in the boxed sets.
Benares is bridged to Peking in a short new sequence (shot in 1996 especially for these 'feature length' edits) in which Anna Jones becomes ill while traveling to China by train (something that was only alluded to in the original episode). Once again we notice that in these new scenes Corey Carrier is visibly older and Lloyd Owen has given up wearing (or lost) the brown contact lenses that made him look a little bit more like Sean Connery. In fact, once you know what to look for, all four of the principal actors look older and pudgier and even the ILM compo-siting of the train riding through the Chinese landscape looks a bit dodgy as well. This is especially evident when there are people working the fields. Luckilly the people at ILM got a lot better at this over the years. It's a shame their old work took so long to be released on DVD, where the faults are even more visible.
The Peking episode written by Rosemary Anne Sisson starts of with Indy, his mom and Miss Seymour sightseeing (including some tomfoolery on the Great Wall). When the young boy falls ill and their luggage is lost in a rainstorm, they are taken in by a poor Chinese farmers family to recover. This is the second and last episode to give Ruth de Sosa something to do as Anna Jones but unfortunately this means that Lloyd Owen as Henry Sr. has to be send away again (to work with Chinese translator Yen Fu). It really is a shame that so little was done to further the characters of Indy's parents during the series. That being said, during a conversation between Indy and his mother, it is revealed that he had a baby sister, Suzie, who died of an illness. This was presumably to have become the subject of one of the proposed episodes set in 1905 (featuring an even younger child actor as six year old Indy) that never saw the light of day. Every episode of this series needs to feature a certain amount of educational value, and in this case, next to the historical tidbits about China, we learn some interesting facts about acupuncture and yin & yang. Similarly, each good story has to see a character learn a lesson, and here we see Anna Jones learning to swallow her prejudice against other cultures. The story still ends with the 'Thanksgiving' diner at the Chinese family, but instead of dissolving back to old Indy, we get a few extra lines (i.e. newly filmed footage) by Anna and Indy, which is really just a repeat of something Krishnamurthi told him in the Benares segment. A rather transparent ploy to bind the two stories together at such a late stage in the proceedings, really.
7 out of 10
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