Gung Ho



In 1986, Hadleyville, Pennsylvania was fading fast. The car factory, engine of the local economy, was closed down and former autoworker and local union head Hunt Stevenson (Michael Keaton) was sent to Tokyo to attract Assan Motors to take over the plant. They did, and hilarity ensued. Gedde Watanabe played the Funny Foreigner who clashed/meshed/changed with Hunt.

Was later made into a TV show with Gedde Watanabe and Scott Bakula. This film provides examples of: "Kaz: From now on, this plant will be run our way, the way we know how!
 * The Alleged Car: Some of the last few of the 15,000 cars they had to build in a month were...well...they never intended them to leave the factory like that...
 * California Doubling: Many scenes are shot in, of all places, Argentina, home to a Fiat factory that was half-abandoned but still full of partly completed cars and they were allowed to film in.
 * Cultural Posturing:

Hunt: Oh yeah? Yeah, well if you guys are so great, how come you lost the big one?"


 * The Eighties
 * Hey It's That Guy Car: European viewers will recognize most of the "Assans" as Fiat Regatas; in the baseball scene Dodge Omnis are used while the original poster and VHS packaging showed a Plymouth Turismo.
 * Japan Takes Over the World
 * My Card: "Anyone got any Subaru or Suzuki? No? Go fish."
 * Reassigned to Antarctica: Kazuhiro
 * Reassignment Backfire
 * Ripped from the Headlines: Japan building factories in or taking over companies in America was a very real concern in The Eighties (beginning in 1982 when Honda opened a plant in Marysville, OH) and this movie explores the idea of two cultures working together to fulfill a common goal (making big money.)
 * Salaryman: Kazuhiro
 * Shout Out: The film takes place in Hadleyville, a probable Shout Out to Mark Twain 's The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg, which the plot faintly evoked.
 * Switch to English: Takahara Kazuhiro's wife starts speaking Japanese to him in one scene, but he tells her to practice her English and they continue the conversation in English.