History Film / GungHo

* PowerWalk: Evoked by the employees [[spoiler: joining Hunt toward the end]], with Buster leading the way.

''Gung Ho'' is a 1986 comedy film directed by Creator/RonHoward and starring Creator/MichaelKeaton and Gedde Watanabe.

The film was subsequently [[RecycledTheSeries adapted]] into a short-lived Creator/{{ABC}} sitcom starring Gedde Watanabe and Creator/ScottBakula.

[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gung-ho_4622.jpg]]

''Gung Ho'' is a 1986 Creator/RonHoward comedy starring Creator/MichaelKeaton and Gedde Watanabe. It was released as ''Turning Japanese'' in some overseas markets.

Hadleyville, Pennsylvania, is fading fast. The car factory, engine of the local economy, has closed down, and former autoworker and local union head Hunt Stevenson (Keaton) is sent to Tokyo to attract Assan Motors to take over the plant. They do, and the town is saved, but now the American autoworkers and the Japanese management will have to somehow learn to work together in spite of their cultural differences. HilarityEnsues.

The film was later made into a TV show with Gedde Watanabe and Creator/ScottBakula.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Like a lot of the other pieces of Japanese corporate culture seen in the film, "Ribbons of Shame" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbons_of_shame are very real.]]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: During the labor action, Hunt is finally driven to tell the strikers the simple truth of why the Japanese are outdoing them in the auto industry is that they have the work ethic that too many American workers have abandoned.

* BlatantLies: Hunt tries to pretend that one of the unfinished cars has a windshield, and is immediately called on it by Sakamoto

* UnfortunateNames: Assan Motor's Japanese name (圧惨自動車) can be translated as "wretched car." Given that the cars produced at Hadleyville barely held for five minutes, the name is hilariously accurate.

* {{Jerkass}}: Saito. He tries to be a ProfessionalButtKisser, but comes across as too smug and wanting to see others (especially Kaz) fail so he'll succeed.

* TheEighties

A 1986 Creator/RonHoward comedy starring Creator/MichaelKeaton and Gedde Watanabe. Released as "Turning Japanese" in some overseas markets.

Hadleyville, Pennsylvania is fading fast. The car factory, engine of the local economy, has closed down, and former autoworker and local union head Hunt Stevenson (Keaton) is sent to Tokyo to attract Assan Motors to take over the plant. They do, and the town is saved, but now the American autoworkers and the Japanese management will have to somehow learn to work together in spite of their cultural differences. HilarityEnsues.

* ShoutOut: The film takes place in Hadleyville, a probable ShoutOut to Creator/MarkTwain 's ''The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg'', which the plot faintly evokes.

* InterchangeableAsianCultures: The theme of the film is Americans and Japanese learning to work together. "Gung ho" means "work together," but it's a ''Chinese'' term coined as an Americanism during World War 2, when America was ''fighting'' the Japanese.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Japan building factories in or taking over companies in America was a very real concern in TheEighties (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.
** The specific plot, the workers at a closed auto plant learning from the Japanese company that takes over and revitalized their plant, specifically happened at the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc ([=NUMMI=]) plant in Fremont, California.

** Really, the film was right on the money in general, including the aforementioned [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribbons_of_shame "Ribbons of Shame"]].

The film was later made into a TV show with Gedde Watanabe and Scott Bakula.

* {{Jerkass}}: Saito

* PowerWalk: Evoked by the employees [[spoiler: joining Hunt toward the end,]] with Buster leading the way.

* ReassignmentBackfire: Kazuhiro is punished by being sent to America, but he manages to succeed there.
* ReassignedToAntarctica: Kazuhiro is shamed in Japan, so he's shipped off to America.

* {{Salaryman}}: Kazuhiro

* ShownTheirWork: The film's depiction of Japanese executives dealing with American workers was so accurate that Toyota actually uses it to show Japanese managers that are bound for the USA how NOT to do things. [[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2007-03-04/why-toyota-is-afraid-of-being-number-one]].

* CaliforniaDoubling: 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.

* JerkAss: Saito