Giants and Toys

While 1950s America was an era of capitalistic furor and 9-to-5 excess, Yasuzo Masumura’s Giants and Toys (1958) paints an equally desperate picture of Japanese workers’ devotion to their corporations…and the lengths they would go to stay one step ahead of the competition.


World, Apollo and Giant Confectionary make up the three-headed monster of candy company rivals, all planning a new campaign to go head-to-head at the upcoming exposition.  To go along with an outer space theme, the executives at World cultivate an unlikely teen model: Kyoko, a rotten-toothed but exuberant cab driver who becomes an overnight sensation. Her cooperation revolves around her infatuation with a young executive, Nishi, who seems immune to her charms; and, in fact, is beginning to resent his company’s winner-take-all business practices.

 

Essentially kicking off the “business genre” in Japanese cinema, Giants and Toys is alternately charming, depressing, joyful and grim.  Despite the fact that mostly men wage the message of the movie – that merciless corporate competition is destroying the body and souls of its employees –, it’s the role of Kyoko, played by Hitomi Nozoe, which invigorates the film.  A vivacious tomboy turned overnight celebrity, Kyoko’s freewheeling joie de vivre simply can’t be faked…and corporate culture’s attempt to reel her in makes for the film’s most potent and tragic message of all.

 

Arrow’s new Blu-ray makes for a great bookend with Masumura’s previously released Black Test Car (1962), which continued to explore the ruthless antics of corporate society.   The special edition includes an audio commentary, intro by Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns, a visual essay, trailer, image gallery and collector’s booklet.

 

 

   

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