Cinema
Giants and Toys
巨人と玩具
Yasuzo Masumura · 1958
Synopsis
Three confectioners, World, Apollo and Giant, compete for the caramel market through advertising campaigns, according to Little White Lies. At World, the head of advertising, Gōda, takes a young employee, Nishi, as his assistant and spy. In a café, Gōda spots a girl from a modest background, Kyōko, with damaged teeth, and decides to make her the brand's mascot, on the theme of space. Nishi has to court her to keep her loyal, while Kyōko, now famous, starts to follow her own path.
Context
The film adapts a story by Kaikō Takeshi, whose rights Daiei bought after the Akutagawa Prize of 1957, from a screenplay by Shirasaka Yoshio, according to a British magazine. It was released in Japan on 22 June 1958. Little White Lies reads in it a portrait of postwar Japan, between the American presence, the arrival of television and plastics, and Jonathan Rosenbaum notes a deliberately garish colour. The Cinémathèque française screened it in 2007.
Who it is for
Ninety-five minutes of satire in garish colours, at the heart of an advertising war.
Prizes and reception
A satire of postwar competition, it appeared in high definition only in 2021, on British video.
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