Japanese cinema has been a bit of a mystery. It’s not that it didn’t exist, but what arrived in America was rather specific offerings. When I was a kid, Japanese cinema consisted of large monsters stomping Tokyo. Around college time, things expanded a little bit beyond Godzilla and Gamera with the films of Akira Kurosawa showing up at art houses. Although his movies would get referenced in terms of the movies that were remade from his work such as Seven Samurai into The Magnificent Seven and Lucas ripping off elements of The Hidden Fortress for Star Wars. Even during the era of Mom & Pop VHS shops, the foreign section didn’t contain much from Japan outside of a copy of the erotic classics In The Realm of the Senses and Tokyo Decadence. So much of Japanese cinema remained across the pacific. But in this age of the Blu-ray, more of the films have arrived on our shores and not all of them have been Samurai or Yakuza stories. Giants and Toys is about selling candy in the late ’50s. We get a colorful glimpse of Tokyo in their Happy Days.
World Candy company is having a serious dip in sales. They need to regain their share of the market from Giant and Apollo. How can they get more of an appeal for their caramels? Two guys in marketing want to go with an astronaut theme. But who goes in the spacesuit? While they have drinks at a café, they notice an attractive teenage girl Kyoko Shima (Floating Weeds’ Hitomi Nozoe). The only thing wrong is she has teeth that looks like she’s been eating caramels all her life and not brushing. But this does not dissuade them as they like her spunky nature. They do their best to get the reluctant Kyoko to take test photos for their big sales idea. Before she becomes a spokeswoman, the candy company gets her in the public eye with a magazine cover and layout. She becomes an instant star as she’s perceived as honest, funny and real. But things aren’t so smooth in the business plans as the rivals want to grab Kyoko as their new spokesperson too. It’s rather cutthroat as one marketing guy discovers his lover will stab him in the back to get a deal. What will happen to Kyoko as the candy wars heat up? Can anyone survive?
Giants and Toys is remarkable peek into advertising and marketing that we wouldn’t get to explore in America until the arrival of Mad Men on TV. This gets into the nasty truth about celebrity fame on the level of Burt Lancaster’s Sweet Smell of Success which came out the year before. Or even Frank Taslin’s Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? except with Jane Mansfield having dental issues. It’s almost like Darling (1965) except Julie Christie didn’t have messed up teeth during her rise to model fame. Giants and Toys gets deep into the way things operated in the Age of Media (which we’re probably still in). Even comparing this film to those three, there’s more to Giants and Toys. Director Yasuzo Masumura has put together a film that shows the human cost in both fame and capitalism. The toll on the marketing department comes off as excruciating as race between the candy companies gets more intense. We get a rare glimpse of executives popping pep pills like candy to stay awake. There are a lot of desperate people who have hitched their future to the Kyoko. Giants and Toys is a masterpiece that I should have seen sooner.
The video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The 1080p color transfer brings out the beauty of the celebrity artifice and the grubby parts of the factory life. The audio is LCPM Mono of the original Japanese track. The soundtrack is clean so you can enjoy the big musical number towards the end. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary by Japanese cinema scholar Irene González-López gives historical context to the film and background on the cast and crew.
Introduction by Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns (10:26) goes into how director Yasuzo Masumura and screenwriter Yoshio Shirasaka were in tune with each other. Masumura had made two other films for Daiei that year and four the next year so he was a busy studio director.
In the Realm of the Publicists (20:35) is a visual essay by Asian cinema scholar Earl Jackson. He gives a bit of background on the original story.
Original Trailer (2:31) has the studio promise this movie will be a “new chapter in the history of cinema.” Oddly enough, they are right.
Images (10:30) includes press photos, a book from when it was called The Build-Up and the poster.
Arrow Video presents Giants And Toys. Directed by: Yasuzo Masumura. Screenplay by: Yoshio Shirasaka. Starring Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Hitomi Nozoe, Yūnosuke Itō, Michiko Ono, Kyu Sazanka, Kinzo Shin & Hideo Takamatsu. Running Time: 95 minutes. Rated: Unrated. Release Date: May 11, 2021.
