Customer Reviews

Action figures 202 pieces with American, British, German & Japanese (WII) model 522

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Here is a good one-stop shopping bucket for many poses of toy army men. The figures are made by the HingFat toy manufacturing company of China. There are 4 nationalities each in its own color, and at least 12 poses per nationality. You get a good variety and a good quantity for the price.

Those of you who remember Louis Marx and Company army men will be disappointed in these knock-offs. Although many of the poses will be familiar, in reality these figures are slightly smaller and less detailed than the Marx figures. They are also molded of a harder plastic that will snap more easily than the classics. You can see lots of sprue twists and mold lines in the figures. Sculpts are not very crisp. Some of the poses are slightly out of scale as if the molds were acquired from different sources.

Historically speaking there is good and bad here. At nationalities at least have proper national weapons. You also gotta love the national stereotypes: the Brits have a bagpiper, the Japanese have a sword wielding officer, one of the Germans looks much like Rommel. Many poses are familiar from famous photos. On the other hand, the German army has a Bundesrepublik Deutschland flag, U.S.A has a 50 star flag.

Kids young and old will certainly love the set as they are colorful, varied and plentiful. I have not yet tested these items with pyrotechnics or flame.

My son loves his new "army men." I must admit considering what is out on the market this is a fun set for him to play with. I like the different nationalities and the fact they're in different colors. I recommend the set for play, but was a bit dismayed that they are made out of a relatively fragile plastic so they are easily broken off stands if stepped on and small parts, such as German hand-grenades and rifle barrels, are easily broken. The set arrived with half a dozen or so broken parts already. Overall, the set is okay, and I only say that because of their lack of durability and price, which is a bit steep. But, as I said, my son loves them and plays with them.

When I bought this toy for my son, I thought initially it might just be the same molded plastic soldiers for all of the four countries, with the exception of the color of the plastic. I am happy to report that I was wrong. The four countries' soldiers represented here (Germany, Japan, USA, and UK) are rendered the way they might have actually looked in WW2. The German soldiers are molded in gray, and have the signature Stahlhelm helmets and the distinctive gas mask cases, the British soldiers (molded in yellow) have the distinctive soup-dish helmets and their machine gunners appear to have Bren guns, the Americans are correctly armed with M3 Grease guns and garand rifles, and the Japanese have officers with samurai swords.

As to the level of detail - well, they're plastic molded soldiers. They were meant to be played with by children, so they're not collector quality renderings with sharp detail. There's the usual leaky-mold-with-rough-plastic-edges common with these types of toys, and the overall detail is pretty rudimentary. You wouldn't even paint these and put them in a diorama, but for my 5-year-old son, he loves them.

Bought this for a birthday present for my 9 yr. old son who loves to play army. He was thrilled with the different colored action figures representing British, German, Japaneese and American. He especially likes the fact that there are several different poses for the soldiers such as throwing a grenade, surrendering, ones with machine guns, etc. They are also more detailed with even facial expressions. You won't be dissappointed.

I remember seeing this at Longs and wanted it so bad. So, years later I was suprised to see the same thing, in different packaging at Rite Aid. They are more fun than most army men (because you can play WWII and different uniforms.) The British get guys with bagpipes to boost morale (or to anoy the crud out of the German grenadiers.) The Japanese get swordsmen and the Americans get pilots/paratrooper guys (with no parachute but they have machine guns.)

As many have reviewed already, these soldiers are (or rather, used to be) a great value for relatively realistic soldiers in four nationalities. It seems, however, that HingFat has cut a lot of corners with their most recent batches of these soldiers in order to save money.

I owned the original bucket which had gray Germans, green Americans, mustard Britons, and pea green Japanese. These new batches however have Germans and Britons composed of almost identical shades of green plastic, gray Americans, and worst of all, pink Japanese.

The quality of the plastic is definitely much lower, as it is much more brittle; an unsettling number of men came with broken rifles and even one or two with their entire arms broken off.

Historically speaking, the set still has that going for it somewhat, however mixed in with the Americans and Germans are one pose each of a completely modern soldier that is of lower quality than all the rest of the figures.

Finally, they made many changes in the sculpt to save on plastic, unfortunately a noticeable amount is lost. The figures are thinner and shorter and worst of all, some of the figures' sculpts were just plain changed. The British figure you'll see above that appears to be dying and clutching his chest barely has a gun. They didn't bother molding the gun for this figure in the new batch, instead he has a strange triangular chunk of plastic!

All in all, if you're buying these as a child's cannon fodder, run-of-the-mill toy soldiers, you're getting a great deal, but if you were looking for inexpensive yet accurate figures for historical dioramas or wargaming, you will be severely disappointed.

Great Toy! I thought that these were just going to be army men with the same poses, just different colors, but when it arrived in the mail I opened it up and I noticed that each country had different poses and you get 202! I also liked that you got flags for every country. It could use a tank but other than that great!

My son has totally enjoyed playing with this set. He is really into American History and War stories right now, therefore, this set was a great gift for him. It was delivered faster than we expected!! 5 stars to the owner for his fast delivery. I was very pleased.

These weren't exactly as described on Amazon. Mainly, the Japanese soldiers are pink! Also, Germany and the UK are the same color green. America is a grayish-silver. My son decided to paint them, which has been a fun project for him, but we weren't expecting this extra step. It's still a fun toy, though, and he's having a great time playing with them.

Update: people wrote in the comments section that I received a counterfeit item. I informed Amazon of this, and they quickly refunded my purchase price. I bought it through a different company that apparently is no longer selling this item on Amazon, so if you buy it now, it should be the right one.

Great set , lots of pieces of the major armies during WW II, my son has played with them for hours. The only complainant is that if you step on a piece they snap in two easily.