Kao Kan

Kao Kan, played by Ric Young

Kao Kan is a fictional character in the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Kao Kan stands with his father Lao Che as one of the only two villains who have survived Indiana Jones, the protagonist of the franchise. Kao Kan is shown as a bloodthirsty Chinese gangster in the film, who overzealously attempted to steal an artifact from Jones off-screen. As opposed to his father, his behaviour is erratic and unbalanced, his patience limited.

When Lao Che turned the tables on Jones and attempted to poison him, the negotiations erupted into chaos. Jones barely escaped the melee that followed, in which Kao Kan tried to gun down the American archeologist with a submachinegun. Jones fled the club, and Kao Kan doggedly pursued Jones to the Nang Tao Airport, where other agents of Lao Che took over the assignment to kill Jones.

Representative of these unusual traits, his character's trademark is a penchant for evil laughter, particularly in a scene where Kao Kan fires his Thompson submachine gun at Indy, sending bullets spraying wildly around the Club Obi-Wan (where the location of the opening scene of Temple of Doom took place) as he laughs manically.

Kao Kan firing his machinegun

Kao Kan was portrayed by the Chinese actor Ric Young in the Temple of Doom, who is most well-known to Western audiences for his roles in Seven Years in Tibet, The Transporter, and the hit television American show Alias.


{| style="margin:0 auto" align="center" class="toccolours" !colspan="2" style="background:#CCCCFF;" | Club Obi-Wan Triad |- !class="medium" align="center"| Characters |class="medium"| Lao Che | Kao Kan | Chen | Nurhaci