BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

morrison-dylan-fan After seeing the superb Pop-Art of 1961's Killers on Parade,I spoke to fellow IMDber ManFromPlanetX about other movies from Japan he would rec. Having got hold (and been meaning to view) since Christmas, I was excited to see PlanetX give high praise for this film, which led to me finally getting the toys out of their boxes.View on the film:Advertising from Takeshi Kaikô's novel,Yoshio Shirasaka's adaptation has a cynicism that feels timeless, centred in the (m)ad men controlled industry,where quality of the product is ignored for which business/ad agency can come up with the most attention-grabbing gimmick. Pulling Shima kicking and screaming into the industry, Shirasaka attacks the public personal connection with the "brand" with mischievous satire breaking the cogs of the three major companies, who are led by grinders whose goal is to crush Shima/ customers that chomp on the profits.Made years before the first notes of modern Pop music were played, director Yasuzô Masumura & cinematographer Hiroshi Murai follow Shirasaka with an ultra-stylisation that is ahead of its time, via the ad men offices and mountains of future gimmicks being washed in dazzling Pop-Art that gives the sharp satire a candy coloured shine. Dancing to Shima's fight for independence with a left-field dance number, Masumura opens up the corporate culture with pans across board tables, glances at stacks of glossy mags and overlapping images of machines drilling into the mindset of the ad men.Caught in the middle of the ruthless ad wars, Hitomi Nozoe gives a fantastic performance as Shima,whose chocolate wouldn't melt in her mouth endearing innocence Nozoe brings her in with,is moulded by Nozoe into a snappy,business savvy eye of escaping from the world of giants and toys.

Comics230 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.

liftedface A genius movie made during turbulent times where the Japanese economic monster had just given way to its hunger. In the 1950's Japanese corporations, after initial American patrimony, had begun to gain its foothold with an ambition that outrivaled its military initiatives of the previous decades. This movie tells a fictional story of corporate wars in the confections and sweets industry where people from all walks of life become sucked into the trappings of the corporate machine while all having the same dreams, not realizing they are different people with separate contributions. The story follows two main characters, Godo and his fresh out of college apprentice Nishi have just taken over the World Caramel ad campaign with aspirations to crush rival companies Giant and Apollo. Godo is a career strategist having acquired his head position by marrying the supervisor's daughter and next eyes the aging father in law's seat. The young Nishi is although hungry, young and principled in his ways and has difficulty losing his dignity to the company as Godo has. Along the way they wrangle a country bumpkin with tadpoles for pets and less common sense than a penny to be their poster girl. Also highly impressionable, Kyoko develops an unfulfilled crush on Nishi and then becomes too rich and famous to reconcile with her conscious. Apprentice Nishi meanwhile is in love with a rival worker and mixes business with pleasure as he falls for the girl and tries to extract corporate strategies from the enemy only to have his heart broken. This film is so sublime in its storytelling it it's surreal. This movie is a harsh criticism but completely stripped of all the hokey tongue in cheek one might find in "Office Space" or "Dr. Strangelove." In doing so it allows layers of credibility in its story and the characters that inhabit it. While we may be able to laugh at gangster rap Xerox angst or Brigadeer General Jack D. Ripper, viewers are not allowed the room to laugh at these overworked, half baked, ants caught up in the great race for domination. It is no surprise that director Masumura Yasuzo spent time in Italy studying film as no indiginant could ever make a film so critical of its own trappings. Quite possibly the best prediction of the direction of Japanese society, this film still stands as a timeless story of ambition and dignity in a world that demands too much from its inhabitants.

Mulliga 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.