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In essence, Japan's candy market is cornered by three caramel companies, World, Giant and Apollo. And since everyone just loves candy, one would think the field's big enough for all three of them to turn in a healthy profit without putting up too much of a fight against the other two - but nothing could be further from the truth, as the three companies seem to be in constant war. World has been trailing of late, but their new chief of advertising Goda (Hideo Takamatsu) - incidently married to the boss's daughter (Hiroko Machida) - is not only ambitious to the point of giving up his own health and sanity, he also has his own ideas of how to achieve this: While the other companies have hired big stars to carry their messages, he plans to create a star, a young everywoman who's acclaim he's to build up to their ad campaign, forbidding her to do any ads for any other companies along the way. And that's where his assistant Nishi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi) comes into play, who somehow attracts the attention of girl-next-door-pretty Kyoko (Hitomi Nozoe), who's just ideal for the job. So Goda has her do photo shoots, public appearances and the like - all monitored by Nishi - before she becomes this year's World Camarel girl. This works out great for a while, as it seems World really has its finger on the pulse, and when all three candy companies announce the grand prizes in their annual prize draws, World's space suit complete with ray gun that taps into the current space craze easily trumps Giant's live animals. But then Apollo announces financial support for the winner from cradle to marriage - and that's just much classier than any gimmick from either of the other companies. It seems that World and Giant are crushed - until Apollo's candy factory burns to the ground and they're simply unable to deliver the goods. Now of course, that should if not end then at least ease the candy wars - but quite the contrary, as World not only drives its workers to exhaustion to produce according to demand rather than capacities, but Goda goes into overdrive with advertising - to notice much too late that his creation, Kyoko, has taken on a life of its own, and her career has taken a tangent away from World ...

A satire on the ad world, consumerism, and the ugly underbelly of hyper capitalism, Giants and Toys is a movie that seems surprisingly timely even over 60 years after its release, which in turn is a testament of how precise the film is in its commentary. And while this sounds incredibly brain heavy, the film comes across as anything but, rather a light-footed comedy, peppered with some romance on one side, some lovingly camp imagery (fitting the worlds of both candy and advertising) on the other, and carried by some spirited performances. A fun movie for sure, and one that will provide you with food for thought as well.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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