There is nothing scarier than the phrase "unofficial Chinese prison". After a little while, Lex is dragged off, and when he comes back he has been worked over pretty well. He tells Jason to give up any information he knows, and that it is not worth dying for. It turns out that Lex had paid a Chinese general to give the two a little scare in order to make Jason talk. But as they are dragging Jason away for his little interview, Lex finds out the the Chinese general betrayed him for somebody who had paid him even more money. The strange part was not that the general betrayed Lex, but that Lex acted like this was a somehow strange event. It's not like Lex's money is the only one that is good for corrupting government officials.

While Lex and Jason are incapacitated, Clark and Lana are searching around Shanghai themselves. Lionel doesn't really give them any more instructions besides, follow this street until you see a green rooster. It took me months to understand why there are two Santa Monica Boulevards in Los Angeles, so I can only imagine how hard it must have been to find a green rooster on some random street in Shanghai with not even a little GPS to help them out. They were told a meet a professor at this green rooster, but how in the hell are they going to know what she looks like? Well, they found the green rooster and the professor found them.

The professor, who is not an old, grizzled man with a fu-man-chu and a penchant for ginseng and ginger. Our professor is a hot young woman, who is not any less knowledgeable, but sure does love leather jackets. She retells the ancient story of the temple, how there was an ancient legend about gods from another planet bestowing leaving an ancient artifact at the temple. Then there was some talk about how some Europeans came, but they were never able to find the artifact. (This is where you are supposed to figure out that those Europeans were working for the Dutchess). While in the temple, Clark notices that there is a false wall. He makes up some excuse for Lana and the professor to go on while he investigates a little more. He pushes the wall, which reveals a silk robe, woven with a pattern that looks like the same map that took Lex so long to find, but is now passed around more often that those star maps on Sunset Boulevard. There is also a chinese mask above the robe, and when Clark gets closer he finds that the mask is inlaid with Kryptonite eyes and is quickly weakened to the point he can't move.

Looks like Clark will have to wait around for Lana and the professor to find him. They will get around eventually, they will wonder what took him so long. Before those thoughts enter their head, some soldiers come in and see the two of them. They shoot the professor on sight, and are about to kill Lana when they notice the tattoo on her back, recognize it, and decide they need to see if she knows anything about it. They take Lana back to the prison (do they have a secret prison for every ancient temple? it seems like you can't find one without the other in any movies these days), where we see that Jason and Lex are getting a little electrocution treatment with a car battery and a wet sponge. Not to worry though, because they are soon to get a break.

The general removes the battery because there is going to be a new inmate in town, one Lana Lang. The guys see that Lana is brought in, and both of them are likely blaming themselves for the fact that she is there, Lex because he paid the general, and Jason because he knows Lana was probably looking for him. Lana is tied down to a chair which is terrible, but better than hanging from the ceiling like her two friends. She also has another ace up her sleeve - a 17th century witch that had possessed her body. Although the Isabelle had been stopped before, there is still a part of her inside Lana, and she is determined not to let anything happen to the hot body she possesses. Once Lana has the electro sponge applied, the Countess reappears in her body, complete with all of the witch powers she needs to magically blast away Red Army soldiers with a hardly a thought.

During the time Lana was going through her mental break, the soldiers at the temple found Clark. Finding it too convenient to shoot him right away, they make sure they take the time to move him just out of range of the kryptonite before they start to work him over a little bit. This gives Clark all of his strength back, which he uses to beat up the guards and rush to save Lana before anything happens to her. He makes it to the prison just in time to see Lana has been possessed, and she sees him just in time to knock him out with one of her nifty energy rays. She then walks on, map in hand, to find this elusive stone.

Posted by J-Unit on February 24, 2005 12:23 PM