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Wow! Such a good movie.

Overrated

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

"If you want to be a star, take three lovers. A producer, a writer and a critic."Cynicism about the corporate advertising world is always topical, so this twisted Japanese satire is still relevant. Apollo, Giant and World are three companies battling for the all-important caramel market. Their publicity departments are hatching frantic promotions to generate sales, including giveaways of live animals, space suits (the "space race" motif is one dated element) and financial support for life. But World strikes gold when an ad exec stumbles upon Kyoko, an unconventionally attractive girl who has gnarled teeth but a certain frisky charisma. She becomes an overnight sensation, appealing to a population who can't relate to flawless celebrities. Meanwhile, the frustrated superstar becomes smitten with a lower World employee assigned to watch her, but he already has a girlfriend working at rival Apollo. He also has an old chum at Giant, and everyone wants to sneak inside information from everyone else."Giants & Toys" makes a nice companion piece for "A Face in the Crowd," which came out just a year earlier. It's quite accessible and has a feisty, percussion-heavy score that's bound to tickle exotica fans. Director Yasuzo Masumura ("Blind Beast," "Red Angel") has a knack for dark humor, though his odd decision to show time- lapse montages over a clicking cigarette lighter doesn't really work here.

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.

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.

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.