User reviews

The themes of people working themselves to death in a desperate struggle for "success" is as relevant today as it was over 40 years ago. And the analysis of popular culture in US/Japan seems right on.

The young protagonists' choice between personal integrity and loyalty to the mainstream society continues to face us every day.

Giants and Toys is a movie with lots of very interesting ideas and if the movie would have been done right it could have easily been a 9/10 for me, which, if you know me, is not a score I give a movie for free. The directing of this movie however missed the point and there was no focus which made the movie seem like a bit of a mess and after you finish it, rather than a coherent picture only bits and pieces stick with you which were the great parts and ideas of the movie.

The tone for example was all over the place. It started off as a fast paced comedy and then later introduced dramatic and thought provoking concepts that deal with the ruthlessness of business and the suffering people have to endure to succeed. Those 2 tones don't really mix well and slowing down your pacing in order to really capture your image of business would have helped to really convey the idea.

The movie also deals with the idea of how people change and become monsters when they become inclined in the nature of business, but sadly didn't manage to capture that with their most important character, the protagonist. He starts off as a naïve young guy new to business and ends in the same way while everything around him changes. I sadly very rarely see in Japanese movies this sort of character development where a good guy is turned into some sort of monster through his environment (you have a few movies which go somewhat in that direction, such as Akira, but you don't have those character developments in Japanese movies as you see in: Citizen Kane, the shining, lord of war, blow or prestige). This sort of character development that can really hammer home the ideas behind the movie is sadly missing in some movies that would really need it, most noticeable this movie. So yeah, Giants and Toys is a good movie, its entertaining well-acted, nicely shot, has a lot to say about businesses and how they are run and is surely worth a watch, but with the right focus to what this movie actually should be, it could have been way better (but ofc also way worse depending on the focus).

Yasuzo Masumura's GIANTS AND TOYS (1958) focuses on the antics behind a publicity campaign for a Japanese brand of caramel candy put out by a company, World Caramels, that's trying to wrest market share from two rivals, Giant and Apollo. Goda (Hideo Takamatsu), the ambitious publicity executive assigned to run the campaign, spots a teenage girl, Kyoko Shima (Hitomi Nozoe), on the street and recruits her to be the public face of the company, planning to put her in a space suit while promoting the candy. He hires Harukawa (Yunosuke Ito), a cynical, alcoholic photographer known for his work with young models, to take the pictures that will put Kyoko's face in popular magazines, and encourages a junior publicist, Nishi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi), to romance Kyoko since she seems to like him. Despite Kyoko's charms, Nishi wants no part of it and instead pursues the crafty Kurahashi (Michiko Ono), an attractive, slightly older counterpart working at the rival company, Apollo. Kyoko, an impetuous, gap-toothed wild child with a ready smile and a lack of inhibition, still has to be persuaded--even coerced--into posing for the initial set of photos, but she gradually comes to like the fame and, more importantly, the money, which enables her to leave her large family in a Tokyo slum district behind. Eventually, success goes to her head and she is soon mulling offers from the candy rivals, a testament to the power of Nishi's rejection of her. Goda, who is married to his department head's daughter, is under extraordinary pressure to increase sales, so he drives himself and everyone around him relentlessly. The satirical tone of the early scenes gives way to a very harsh critique of Japanese society in the postwar era on the verge of its highly-touted "economic miracle."

When the film focuses on Kyoko, it's very charming and often quite funny. She reminds me of a looney, working-class Audrey Hepburn. Her impulsive behavior around the male characters may not be the most ladylike but it's really cute and even a little sexy. The photographer, Harukawa, is also very funny. He's brutally frank, acerbic and full of thoughts on a wide range of subjects. When he's interviewed by a pack of reporters, he tells one of them, "Your magazine is full of crap," before launching into a rambling monologue on famous western poets and their writing and meditating habits ("Byron wrote poems while inflicting self-torture") before lamenting that "Japanese novelists meditate on the toilet." At one point, in a bar watching Japanese women dance with western men, he expounds on the reason for Japanese women's preference for western men, something to do with the difference in physiques between the two races. I could have listened to him for much longer. Unfortunately, the bulk of the film shifts from Kyoko and Harukawa to the two World publicity execs and they just aren't that interesting. Eventually, it comes down to a moral debate between Goda, who justifies every cutthroat tactic he can think of as part of some nationalist impulse, and Nishi, who questions the ethics of what they're doing, culminating in a bleak, unsatisfying ending.

There is lots of dialogue about the Japanese way in the postwar era and what's needed to survive and thrive, with Goda's position thought to be at odds with traditional Japanese values. Many on the staff side with Goda and when one character complains that what worked in America won't work in Japan, another executive declares, "America is Japan." Goda increasingly becomes a caricature as the film progresses. When Nishi objects to the way Kurahashi is trying to hire Kyoko away from World to work for Apollo, especially after he's revealed his company secrets to her during their affair, she dismisses it with this line: "Work is work and love is love. We love as we cheat. It's so thrilling. It's love that will last." Which struck me as a very odd thing to put in such a character's mouth, unless something was lost in the subtitled translation. The whole sales war between Giant and World becomes an unlikely media event, as if the public would even care about two caramel companies. The film hits us over the head with all these messages without really working them into the fabric of the story. They seem forced.

Other Japanese films from the postwar era managed to incorporate these kinds of criticisms in a much less heavy-handed way, making points through story and character. Akira Kurosawa's HIGH AND LOW (1963) examines the battle between a conscientious executive and the company directors' greed through the prism of a crime story involving a kidnapping. Keisuke Kinoshita's THUS ANOTHER DAY (1959) looks at the plight of a salaryman desperately trying to get ahead and the strain it puts on his family, but lays out its critique entirely through the way characters behave and the shifting of relationships. (I've also reviewed this film on IMDb.) Nagisa Oshima and Koreyoshi Kurahara, two directors who were even younger than Masumura, also managed to layer their films of the 1950s and '60s with incisive social critiques of Japan, but they did it without making Japan look foolish, which is what Masumura does here. GIANTS AND TOYS has been compared to such American counterparts as Frank Tashlin's WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER, Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT, Alexander Mackendrick's SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and Elia Kazan's A FACE IN THE CROWD, but those films managed to make their points without making America look foolish or hateful.

Giants & Toys - One the main reasons I watched Giants & Toys was for the simple theme of the 1950's space craze. I love that era and 1950's Science Fiction. And I wasn't disappointed, I loved to see all the toys used as props in the movie, more than once stopping to get better look at them. What that stuff would be worth on eBay! It seems frivolous, but it did get me to watch the movie.

Giants & Toys is biting commentary on then contemporary 1950's Japanese life. It shows a society where corporations have taken over the Samuri Class role. Life belongs to your company. In the end, even beating down the most idealistic employee. From all I've read about Japanese corporate culture, this is what it is like.

More than just commentary on Japanese life, Yasuzo Masumura (director), Takeshi Kaikô (novel) and Yoshio Shirasaka (writer) are prophetic in the assessment of pop culture and media even in today's society. About thirty minutes into the movie there a line about "stars getting their 15 minutes of fame." Now that line may have not been a literal translation from the Japanese, but even so. Worhol's comment on fleeting fame wasn't made until 1968, ten years after Giants & Toys. I would love to find out what actually was said in that scene (anybody care to translate). I also wonder if this movie was an inspiration to Worhol.

I definitely put this into a must watch category. I look forward to checking out more Masumura films.

Japan, 1958. As fierce competition goes on between the Giant, World, and Apollo candy companies, Nishi, an advertising executive for World, finds on the streets a cute hillbilly girl called Kyoko with rotted out teeth, bad clothes and tadpoles as pets. Sensing she possesses some sort of weird appeal, he immediately thinks she would make a great model for the next World campaign, selling candy in a space suit (Space themes, the execs reason, should score big as a new theme for advertising in Asia; let's remember this movie was made a year after the Sputnik). As she becomes more famous, of course, Kyoko develops a more independent streak, and resents more and more being manipulated around by the World people. So she tries to pursue the dream of being a singer in the new medium of television. It is amazing that this satire of advertising, capitalism and consumerism was made in 1958, since it is unlike any other movie from that time, including American movies. A film relatively (and undeservedly) unknown, it's full of pop imagery a decade before pop took over the world. It only shows once again that since the 1950s, Japan has been ahead of the rest of the world (including other rich countries) by decades. By the way, I saw it in a terrific color print, that makes the Japan of almost 50 years ago look as if it was shot yesterday.

Three Japanese companies are locked in competition to sell the most caramels. World Caramels hires unspoiled, tomboyish Hitomi Nozoe as the spokesmodel for their new, space-aged campaign. But fame is fleeting and people in the public eye don't remain unspoiled for long.

Yasuzô Masumura, the director of this movie, came to the movie industry after studying philosophy. He worked under Kon Inchikawa, and was directing by 1957. Here, we have a satiric indictment of the corporate capitalism of the new Japan, in which people work themselves to death, marry for advancement, and sacrifice human feelings for advancement. It's a problem that has not gone away.

It's fast-cut editing and mildly hysterical performances all the way through this movie. I thought it was too strident in making its philosophical points, but the actors certainly were compelling.

This could very well be the greatest cinematic exposé on the eat-or-be-eaten attitude of corporations. Three rival caramel companies war with each other. The film focuses on the marketing departments of these companies. Think Cola Wars and you'll have a clue. This film was made in 1958, but it feels very modern. And the new Fantoma DVD is so pristine that it looks as if it were made yesterday. I've never seen a Criterion DVD even approach this quality. Please, give Fantoma your money. Order all four of the Yasuzo Masumura DVDs as I did! 10/10.

While I did enjoy the stylish photography and the sometimes clever characterization, the movies ham-handed handling of theme was too much. The theme is thrown at the viewer often, including being inserted into several scenes of preachy dialogue.

The story was obviously written around a theme, first, and failed to maintain emotionally engaging characters throughout. Too bad, as several characters became interesting, only to have that interest thrown away by another dialogue rant and an abrupt ending that doesn't build to a satisfying moral dilemma - the character dilemma is certainly there, but the story engagement is not enough to make me care.

I dislike rating any art with a measurement, such as the 5 out of 10 stars I gave this film; measurements are meaningless when it comes to art - they can't be proved with a yardstick, so to speak. So take my rating with a grain of salt. You may absolutely love this movie.

Corporate intrigue between the Giant, World, and Apollo caramel companies. Nishi is an ad exec for World, his best friend from college works in the advertising division of Giant, and his girlfriend works in the advertising division of Apollo. Nishi's boss, Godo is married into the family that runs the company, and it is obviously not a happy marriage, Godo disrespects his wife and has worked himself into a bleeding ulcer. When Godo and Nishi discover a cute hillbilly girl with rotted out teeth on the streets, Godo thinks she would make a good model and convinces her that Nishi is in love with her. While the rival companies create competing campaigns the young workers attempt to find a middle ground between loyalty to the company and loyalty to your friends. Eventually things turn very bad, and this may be the only movie in history where a guy walking around in a spacesuit with a bubble helmet, shooting a toy gun is a downer ending. The movie features a very weird musical number where Kyoko the hillbilly girl (after getting her teeth fixed) sings a jazzy little number about death, destruction and cannibalism. It is amazing that this film was made in 1958, it is light years beyond any other movie from the 50's I've ever seen. The use of Nishi's lighter to trigger montages is a really interesting idea visually, and I've never seen anything like that before. I give it a 10, and now I definitely need to see more of Masumura's films- the only other one I've seen is Blind Beast which is a horror/sexploitation flick in the style of The Collector.

The movie is a true masterpiece by Yasuzo Masumura in which the cut­ throat  rivalry for money between various companies at that time(Post­ World war) is beautifully  portrayed .The movie is successful in giving us the picture of japan  at that time and how  the people of japan consider Americans superior  and try to copy the m.It also shows how Corporatization and commercialization of Japan have dehumanized  everything The director Masumura Yasuzo was successful in giving the complete  picture of the  japan after world war ll .The film beautifully satirizes the instant  manufacture of  media stars, the decline of gentlemanly business ethos and rise of culture of  ruthless  corporate skulduggery, and the emphasis on work at the expense of personal life and  health as shown Mr.Goda was coughing blood in the end.The movie  clearly showed how  Corporatization and commercialization of japan had dehumanized every thing it had touched.

You have to admire a film that just celebrated its 50th anniversary and yet is as fresh in its concept as if it was released last Friday. This story of three caramel companies vying for market share is a satirical look at the cut throat aspect of business. The World Caramel Company, to increase business, tries to come up with a prize to lure kids into buying their product. They choose space suits and find a model Kyoko, played with all the necessary immaturity by Hitomi Nozoe. She has really bad teeth, but that is part of the allure, that she is not some supermodel hawking the product. Watch how publicity manager Goda (Hideo Takamatsu) and his assistant Nishi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) mold her into this spokesperson, how they lose their soul to sell the product and what Kyoko morphs into. Director Yasuzo Masumura has directed many other films and he has a flair for the absurd here. I found myself thinking that this is what goes on in business throughout the world, then and now. So, this film does not have to be remade. I honestly feel they should make it required viewing for marketing majors, as a heads up of what they can expect. A very watchable, fast paced film that will make you think.

I haven't seen any of Masumura's other films, but, if they are anything like "Giants and Toys," they are extremely strange. Think "Four Hundred Blows" crossed with "Greed is good" American-style capitalism in post-war Japan, and you've got a good idea of what the story is about. Wickedly on-target satire, good performances, and interesting visual ideas (including Warhol-esque shots of ads featuring World Caramel's poster girl) converge in a very good, if surreal, movie. It's not quite good enough to be a classic, but it is unpredictable and enjoyable to watch.

Three caramel companies compete with each other to dominate the market and each of three resorts to a ludicrous marketing campaign to attract the public's attention. Spacemen dancing in astronaut suits, savages dressed in leopard skins yelling through loudspeakers from the backs of buses, financial subsidies from birth to marriage, each company resorts to a kitschen-sink approach that's as good as the results it brings. There's nothing at all subtle about this movie. It's completely in your face from start to finish, a fast-paced riproaring cataract one part irreverent comedy twenty parts OTT scathing satire.

And therein lies the problem. GAT makes its point across with the same clarity and fierceness of a DR. STRANGELOVE, lacking the acerbic wit and terrific performances of Kubrick's anti-war film maybe, but the problem is that the point it beats over our heads is not as urgent, prophetic or insightful as it might have been in the context of the booming economy of postwar Japan. It's all a bit much to take in one sitting. Greedy PR managers yell stuff like "We need more sells!", neon signs flash, a painted girl does a dance number, advertising trucks, wheels moving, assembly line machines pumping out caramel boxes, executives telling each other the plot of the movie in front of sales diagrams, grotesque faces smile grimly in closeup, people point at camera yelling "we need more sales!" etc.

When the two principal characters, the honest exec who values integrity above money and the cut-throat exec who will stop at nothing to achieve the company's goals, clash in the film's climax yelling at each other stuff like "We must sell more caramels! We must win the prize!" / "No, I value my integrity!", the movie had long outstayed its welcome. Masumura backed himself into a corner that left him no other option but to beat the same dead horse for 90 minutes. As a piece of satire, GAT has lost some of its bite. As a piece of kitschen-sink camp, it's still as outrageous as it ever was. Combine the two and it's easy to see why it has a cult following. It just wasn't my thing.