Gung Ho (1986)

A Japanese auto company is persuaded to take over an abandoned factory--and abandoned U.S. workforce--in a small rust-belt town in Middle America. Alas, this wonderful idea for a culture-clash comedy goes pretty much to waste in Gung Ho. Michael Keaton gives his most relentlessly obnoxious performance as the fast-talking shop foreman who never stops BS'ing his Japanese employers, his work buddies (George Wendt and John Turturro among them), his girlfriend (Mimi Rogers), and himself. There's a trumped-up crisis in every reel, and a great deal of double talk about whether the Japanese are workaholic freaks or the new, true inheritors of the old American get-up-and-go. Director Ron Howard and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel had made the enchanting comedy-fantasy-romance Splash only a couple of years before; they probably thought they were concocting a Frank Capra-style fable here, but, far from having a beautiful mind, this movie is strictly sitcom mentality from top to bottom. --Richard T. Jameson Amazon.com

Simply a classic!

Today I work with many Asians. Particularly I have many Japanese customers. As a teen seeing this movie for the first time I couldn't appreciate how prophetic it was.

I decided to pick it up and watch it again, not having seen it for over 20 years. It holds up so, so well.

Don't get caught up in all the anti-USA propaganda of the past decade. Watch this movie. It will help you recognize that the USA is still a young nation, filled with the promise and naive "can-do" attitude that only comes from those that are young. Not every other country hates us...and yes, for most we Americans "make them laugh", and that is a very good thing.
February 22, 2008

A timeless comedy for all generations!

This has been one of our families all time favorites. It's not only funny, but it's touching as well. It's as relevant socially today as when it was made. Some of the humor is subtle and so it should be viewed more than once. This movie is a classic and we feel is appropriate for our whole family as it does not have to utilize profanity, violence or other cheap shots to be truly funny. It is extremely well-written and the characters are cast to perfection. It's one of those magic movies where everything seems to work. A TOTALLY FEEL-GOOD EXPERIENCE! May 12, 2007

An comical look at the 80's Auto invasion

The economy wasnt that good in the 80's and no where was it felt worse than the Auto industry. Lots of people can remember when there was a general panic that the Japanese would take over the car business and that every person in America would be driving a Japanese car.

Gung Ho is the story of a man, Michael Keaton, who is sent to Japan to encourage the Japanese to re-open a car factory in his dying town. Japanese efficiency clashes with the American "do it the way I like" attitude and it soon comes down to a showdown of producing 15,000 cars or loosing the factory.

Gung Ho is definitely a product of its time. American auto workers couldnt understand the "work-a-holic" attitude of the Japanese and the Japanese couldnt understand the American attitude of putting their company second or third on their priority list. Director Ron Howard trys to put a comical spin on the "East v.s. West" of automotive assembly.

Despite its age, the film still holds water but hard to understand for anyone who "wasn't there" in the 80's.

On a short note, most of the Japanese makes ZERO sense and the subtitles bear no relationship to whats being said. I think only one of the Actors could actually speak Japanese. The rest is horribly dubbed by someone who CAN'T speak the language. October 15, 2006

Descent movie, a good movie about teamwork and telling the truth

I have seen this movie probably 10 times since it came out in the theaters, and each time I find it just as funny and likeable. Sure, the characters are sterotyped almost to an extreme, but I have worked with both cultures (both a union blue collar, and a white collar-international based one), and there is a grain of truth to each. The movie had to be exagerated to show more impact, and coming together for the "hollywood effect". The head of the company Oishi Kazihiro played by Gedde Watanabe was my absolute favorite character in the movie, very human, great delivery of some of his lines, and just a good role. George Wendt did a good job as "a regular joe", much like his Norm character on Cheers. Michael Keaton's role displayed much of the turmoil a midlevel supervisor has to go through. Overall, the morals of telling the truth, and that people can work through cultures/lifestyle diffences are clear and pretty potent. Rent or buy this movie, it's worth it. Ron Howard did a descent job with this one, October 3, 2006

Still holds up well after 20 years. Doesn't take sides and shows cultures finding ways to finally work together.

This movie is now 20 years old. It is an interesting comedy for what it says about how the Japanese and American cultures were trying to learn to work together in a world economy. Americans were not used to being on the losing end of competition, quality, and efficiency. And they tended to see themselves as entitled to their well paying unskilled jobs. The movie exaggerates these traits, but having worked on an assembly line for a couple of years, I can tell you that the exaggerations are still based in reality back in the 1970s and 1980s. The Japanese are portrayed as being all about company, ruthless bargainers, and relentless perfectionists. I particularly liked the way the Japanese are shown saying things about hearing what the Americans are saying and the Americans taking it to mean agreement while the Japanese mean no such thing.

The movie doesn't take sides and shows most of the problems coming from fear and misunderstanding. Isn't that really what happened? In the 1980s Americans feared the Japanese dominance of our economy and it resulted in some extreme actions and reactions. Nowadays, we fear the Chinese in a different way, but their dominance of basic manufacturing is more complete than the Japanese ever were and yet there isn't the same kind of backlash. Why? Well, that is outside the scope of this little review. Maybe it is experience with losing certain kinds of manufacturing for decades. Maybe it is because the auto industry was seen as particularly American and the high end of unskilled labor as middle class. Maybe it is because we now see economy successfully adapting as some new job classes are created and others leave. Maybe it is something else.

Michael Keaton is fine as a man trying to save his town, but makes lots of mistakes in dealing with both sides. Still, he wins in the end. However, I believe it is Gedde Watanabe who makes the movie work. He has to be Japanese enough to be a threat while still being enough outside the mainstream Japanese culture that Americans feared in order to be sympathetic. He has many well done moments in the film and I enjoy him whenever I see him on the screen. Really, he should work even more.

George Wendt was the big name at the time with the huge success of Cheers since 1982. He represents the old American labor and has one of his least sympathetic roles, especially when he knocks down the even more unsympathetic Japanese manager (well played by Sab Shimono) and thereby shifts our sympathy to the Japanese. A neat plot trick. We also get to see the generational gap between the post World War II generation that lifted Japan from utter ruin to a world economic power in only a few decades, and the younger managers who don't feel they can say anything, but do want to be with their families (as shown in the birth of the daughter to Ito (Rodney Kageyama does a terrific job in a few small scenes. He adds a lot to the film).

We have learned a lot about working in a global economy since 1986. The Japanese have certainly suffered through their own terrible economic problems. I am glad the movie showed a positive ending with the two cultures forming an ability to work together even with much left to learn and work through.

While much has changed, the movie still holds up pretty well. But young people who never knew the paranoia of Japan from the 1980s might need to have some things explained to them. August 29, 2006

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