Giants and Toys

Summary

“Here, it’s a desperate fight just to survive.”

When I was a child, Japanese cinema was my gateway to world cinema. After discovering the films of Akira Kurosawa at the local video rental store, I was hooked. As an adult, I have continued exploring Japanese films through Kinji Fukasaku, Seijun Suzuki, and many others. These films have largely come to my attention through Arrow Video, which, aside from Criterion Collection, has the greatest collection of important Japanese films. This week I decided to view the film Giants and Toys by filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura. I had never seen any films by Masumura and was excited to watch the film. Based on a novel by Ken Kaiko, Giants and Toys was adapted into a screenplay by Yoshikawa Shirasaka. It is an acidic takedown of the Japanese business world of the Fifties, and one of the darkest showbiz polemics of its time. Fans of Mad Men and Sweet Smell of Success will find themselves right at home watching the film.

In the highflying world of Japanese business of the Fifties, World Confectionery sells caramels. Their sales have been trending down for the last few years. Their chief opponent Apollo sells three flavor caramels which have been hurting their market share. They also are forced to compete with Giant. These three brands are the market for caramels in Japan, but they have also been hurt by the American candy that has been importing into Japan since the war. World Confectionery decide to pursue an aggressive advertising campaign through a contest. Mr. Goda, an ambitious advertising executive, takes young protege Nishida (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) to lunch. They fetch a girl off the street and they offer her a job. Her name is Kyoto (Hitomi Nozoe) and she is from Fukagawa and works at a taxi company. She has noticeably rotten teeth. Mr. Goda plans to turn her into a star and he wants Nishida to be her handler. Nishida’s best friend Yokoyama works at the rival caramel company Giant. They are old college friends and also rivals in their respective publicity departments. They meet at a bar with Masami Kurahashi (Michiko Ono,) a hard working female publicity department worker from Apollo. After he repeatedly begs her for an idea, she gives Nishida an idea – spacesuits. They proceed with the space publicity idea at World Confectionery. Mr. Goda contacts Kyoko and they pick her up to be photographed by a seedy photographer named Mr. Harukawa. The pictures turn out well. They take Kyoko from the slums and she agrees to be photographed partially because she likes Nishida. Meanwhile Nishida pursues a romance with Masami and pumps her for information. The photos of Kyoto run in a magazine published touting itself as the life of a cute girl and Kyoko overnight becomes a sensation. The company invents her narrative and she delivers the lines they tell her including saying that she gives all her money to her sick parents. The relationship between Masami and Nishima ends when she tries to steal Kyoko. She does reveal Apollo’s plan – they will offer a prize of cradle to grave subsidized living. So the battle between  the big three firms is laid out – Space suits versus animals versus subsidized living for life.

In my life outside of writing movie reviews, I run numerous businesses with my family and my wife does al of our advertising and marketing. As you might expect, a movie about cutthroat business practices from publicity departments appealed to me. In Giants and Toys, Japanese corporate politics are satirized including nepotism, excessive drinking culture, and media dishonesty. What I enjoyed about the movie is just how tough it is on the characters. As another reviewer pointed out, the film feels like Japan’s answer to Sweet Smell of Success.  In one example, an employee receives a promotion, but they have degenerated so much in their pursuit that they are literally spitting up blood. In one scene, a woman asks if a character likes her or not and he explains that he does not and that she is essentially just salable goods. I don’t think it gets much more brutal than that. The premise of Giant and Toys is that decency is dead and advertising is the current dictator of the masses. The film sells the premise well.

The acting in the film is strong. Hitomi Nozoe is excellent as Kyoko. She manages to nail the transformative act from unsuspecting and naive bumpkin to media savvy and jaded star. Hiroshi Kawaguchi Is enjoyable to watch as the morally conflicted and ultimately morally compromised Nishida. The two stars obviously did not become too jaded in real life considering they ended up marrying each other and staying together until their deaths over thirty years later. They also appeared in Ozu’s Floating Weeds together. Director Yasuzo Masumura drew good performances from all involved in the film. Working with cinematographer Hiroshi Murai, Yasuzo painted an interesting picture of a Japan that is assaulted by advertising at every turn. The film is well shot.

Overall – Giants and Toys is a darkly funny take on the business world and advertising world of Fifties Japan. Recommended.

Video

Arrow Video have provided a good looking 1080p transfer of the film using an MPEG-4 AVC codec. Like many Japanese films shot at this time for companies like Toei or Daiei, the film shows its age. This transfer happens to be of pretty high quality with only the occasional rough patch. Fine detail is maintained well and grain is present and filmic. This film looks in line with Arrow’s other restorations of Japanese films of this era and should please fans.

Audio

Arrow Video has provided a Japanese LPCM Mono track for the film. Similar to the video, there is some distortion in the audio tracks, but that should not come as a surprise. As can be expected, the film’s dynamic range is limited. This track does a faithful job of restoring the audio. There is not much hiss that I picked up in my viewing. It sounds pretty good.

Supplements:

• Brand new audio commentary by Japanese cinema scholar Irene González-López
• Newly filmed introduction by Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns
• In the Realm of the Publicists, a brand new visual essay by Asian cinema scholar Earl Jackson
• Original Trailer
• Image Gallery

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4/5

Supplements – 3.5/5

Overall – 4/5

Giants and Toys is a really well conceived and well made Japanese film. Fans of films like In the Company of Men and Sweet Smell of Success will enjoy the film for its acidic take on Japanese corporate politics and ruthless ambition. The film is dryly funny and still feels relevant over fifty years later. The Arrow Video Blu-ray features solid technical specs and some enjoyable supplemental features. Fans of the series Mad Men will enjoy seeing what publicity departments were doing in Japan in the Fifties. I look forward to checking out more films from filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura. Recommended.