Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Tacticalin An absolute waste of money

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

johnnyboyz I will spare any reader the lecture on Freud – if, indeed, I could even provide you with one. We have all heard, casually or otherwise, the psychoanalytic ideas pertaining to men; women and fear before – fear of one's mother or the opposite gender or whatever else is on offer, but of course all conveniently sub-consciously: we know what we think but have no idea that we think it. Somewhere at the heart of "The Million Eyes of Sumuru" there is a reason to fear women; to fear their beauty and their company – to be sceptical as to their motives and to be mindful as to their ideas. The decade of the 1960's was a time of extraordinary change, no less on the issue of women in the Western hemisphere – abortions; easier access to a divorce; better opportunities on various career ladders are but three items which revolutionised a female's "place" in society. "The Million Eyes of Sumuru", certainly a piece of its time, is the strange amalgamation of these two articles crashing head first into one another: women are powerful and independent – they have a newfound sense of freedom and power; they are capable of things they were deprived of previously. They are to be at once both feared and found attractive. The fact that those responsible for the film considered it befitting to depict aspects of these psychoanalytic/post-feminist notions as some kind of horror piece is interesting. Alternatively, the film is merely a somewhat strange and relatively incompetent 80 minute long thriller which is ultimately both too uninteresting and too confused of its own individual identity to be something really worth recommending. Shirley Eaton is the eponymous Sumuru; a woman whose origins are not provided nor whose overall vision is ever fully explained. She is the stock movie antagonist – somebody who wants world domination and she plans said conquest from the confines of an island just off the coast of Hong Kong. She presides there with a small army of women aged between 18 and 35: they are beautiful, but deadly - in the opening scene, Sumuru kills 19 men with one bomb explosion on the mainland. Arriving home, the women are coldly watching on as a comrade uses her thighs to choke a man to death. The whole operation reeks of a cross between the Czech-based "Other World Kingdom" and the infamous "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant".This combination of terror and heightened sexuality is the thrust behind Sumuru's plan: to send each of these gorgeous girls out to seduce and marry the richest men in the world. Sumuru assumes that, once they meet grizzly ends, most of the money will be left to their new muses – money which will all come back to Sumuru who'll thus be able to fund her campaign to take over the world.On another strand, Nick West (Nader) and Tommy Carter (Avalon) are CIA agents holidaying in Italy. Carter, the younger man, likes his girls whereas West appears more prudent – early nights and an oral affirmation that he does not force himself upon anyone seems to characterise him. They become entangled in Sumuru's plan when a murder in their vicinity that she ordered was already connected to somebody they knew, and after a bit of prodding and poking, both men are in the Far-East. West is later forced into working for Sumuru as they seek to kill a local tycoon, while Carter spends most of the film trying to find and save him.In spite of the globe-trotting; the high-concept idea; the efficiency in how the enemy is conveyed to us and the plot of world domination, it is remarkable as to how the film does not really lift off. We are distracted too often by other things: Why is Central European Klaus Kinski cast as somebody from Hong Kong? Why doesn't the lead react as he should when he is provided a tour of the villain's lair? Why do characters act with remarkable inconsistently throughout as per their established outlooks on life? The film is not without a sprinkling of substance – it allows both Sumuru and West to seem to come to question their outlooks on life and the world. Eaton's character punishes one of her girls early on with a death sentence for the "crime" of falling in love, but then appears to come to quite like our lead agent – providing him in the process ample opportunity (too much to be consistent with her views, hence why we sense it to be so central) to return that fondness. West, comparatively, who begins the film with a cautious attitude towards women, seems to fall under a spell of promiscuity the longer he stays on the enemy's island. By the end, he seems to have fallen for his gaoler and realised the pleasures one can derive from sexually submitting to a woman. This, however, makes the film sound more substantial than it actually is. It is difficult to entirely work out what point the film was trying to make. Many have laughed the whole thing off as camp nonsense – an idiotic piece of its time and era. It seems to me it had something to say about the way men and women co-exist; that sex, love and power are too interlinked with one another as elements to ignore one or all of them. The sexualisation of our culture in the years since it was made, not to mention the more prominent role women have had in where we live, have had an incredible impact on our civilisation - "The Million Eyes of Sumuru" seems to have been made by people aware we were heading into a brave-ish new world, where girls; sex; power; mass-influence and Technicolor would be more prominent, but it is a very difficult piece to be entirely enthused by.

Michael_Elliott The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967) * 1/2 (out of 4) The evil and sadistic Sumuru (Shirley Eaton) builds a group of women who plan on killing all of the men that they can. Agent Nick West (George Nader) and his sidekick (Frankie Avalon) are thrown into the game to try and track her down.THE MILLION EYES OF SUMURU is based on the Sax Rohmer character and story but I must admit that I really didn't care for it. To be honest, I really don't care for any of the movies like this. It seems like after the success of James Bond we got all sorts of lower tier characters and spy stories that were usually pretty to look at but they contained very little else. Movies like this one of even the Dr. Goldfoot movies just never cut it for me.The biggest problem here, and with many of the films, is the fact that there's a lot of boring story that you have to sit through. Another major problem is that this film seems to have been aimed at children because there's certainly no drama or tension in any of the action. There's certainly not too much going on and I have to wonder if even the kids would be entertained by this thing. I'm sure teenagers might have been interested in the beautiful ladies but that's about it.Eaton is good in her role but sadly she just isn't given too much to do. Nader certainly doesn't add anything with his lifeless performance and it seems Avalon was only here to try and bring in whatever remaining fans he had at the time. Klaus Kinski appears towards the middle of the movie and gives it a boost but he's not enough to save the picture.

Leofwine_draca THE MILLION EYES OF SU-MURU is one of the millions of Harry Alan Towers-produced movies made during the 1960s that were usually filmed in various exotic locations; Hong Kong was the choice for this one. Based on a Sax Rohmer story, this is a film which serves to emulate the popularity of the Christopher Lee-starring Fu Manchu movies which were being made at the same time, except with an all-female twist.Sadly, it's a bit of a boring affair, a definite case of style over substance and a film which feels rather insipid and tame when watched with modern eyes. Shirley Eaton (GOLDFINGER) is the titular foe, who sends her all-woman army out to kill various world leaders in a bid for world domination. Only two men can stop her: the wooden George Nader (ROBOT MONSTER) and the equally wooden singer-turned-actor Frankie Avalon.What follows is light, fluffy, and predictable, and this feels much like the Italian Bond rip-offs that flooded cinemas during the late '60s. There are lots of beautiful Euro starlets wandering around showing acres of flesh, a typically bizarre cameo role for Klaus Kinski, and Wilfrid Hyde-White propping up the scenery as he did in many a Towers-produced film. Fans of '60s kitsch might find something to enjoy here, but those who require more substance should look elsewhere. A Jess Franco-helmed sequel, THE GIRL FROM RIO, followed.

jb-116 Wasnt a great film, but was unusual to watch. Could have had more action. Too much music. Battle sequences well done. Overall, Watchable, i thought it was fairly good entertainment.