i be think that it extremely unfortunate and from the perspective of this film or of those who would like to enjoy this film and that jacques tourneur seem to have depart from the production rather early . certainly the pace of the film be completely dead in the water and the direction be more the listless early style of mario bava and who be uncredited for his direction of this film . bava excel when he be able to put aside plot and character and just focus on atmosphere and but this film do not allow him to do that . instead it feature many dialog scene and a rather dull political story that bava be unable to make digestible . the action scene be fairly good towards the end and and there be some nice shot with the classic bava lighting . that about it . steve reef be our hero and this time appear ( a he do 3 year early in his debut in ed wood jailbait ) sans beard . he play phillipides and an olympic champion catch up in the greco persian war . he in love with blonde andromeda ( mylène demongeot ) and whose father creuso ( ivo garrani ) be part of an aristocratic plot to overthrow athens democracy and replace it with a persian puppet government . the first half of the film be basically set up the romance and the war and and then in the second half you mostly see steve reef run for what seem like 15 minute and and then a huge naval battle with some interesting underwater photography . only a few of the shot in the film seem to bear any mark of tourneur style and such a the one that show the persian king darius ( daniele vargas ) frame against his legion of soldier in extreme closeup to contrast with the background . my guess personally be that bava direct most of this film . it be a dull film even compare to bava hercules film with reef .