Mediocre; through and through. The tone is off kilter. Is it comedy or drama?!? It can't decide. So-so movie over all, just because it can't decide what TONE it wants to adhere to. Completely uneven!

"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling. Honest, industrious citizens were classed as bloodsuckers if they asked to be paid a living wage, and praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed." - Kurt Vonnegut Ron Howard's "Gung Ho" stars Michael Keaton as Hunt Stevenson, a factory worker at an auto plant in Hadleyville, Pennsylvania. When the plant is purchased by Assan Motors, a Japanese company, Hunt becomes a liaison between Japanese bosses and American workers.For most of its running time, "Gung Ho" is a slick, well-shot and funny feature. Here, Japanese capitalism is shown to be dangerously obsessed with production, exploitation and servitude. In contrast, American workers and bosses are shown to be slovenly, lackadaisical and overly individualistic, traits which hamper corporate profits.By the film's end, however, Howard reveals "Gung Ho's" quite sinister message: the worker of tomorrow is better off if he adopts a mixture of Eastern and Western values. Work hard, increase production and put your job first, and mega-corporations won't fire you, abandon you and go seeking cheaper labour elsewhere. But don't work too hard; after-all, an alive worker is a good worker.That this is not only a form of social blackmail, and a false binary – the worker forced to choose between two types of the same exploitation – doesn't occur to Howard. That capitalism's many contradictions means that it must, in aggregate, lead to bankruptcy, debt, unemployment, downsizing, lowered wages and unemployment regardless of "efficiency" or "the behaviour of the worker", doesn't occur to him either. Co-starring Mimi Rogers, the film quite cleverly positions its audience to sympathise with what would otherwise be deemed racial stereotypes.7.5/10 - Worth one viewing.

This is quite simply the worst film I have ever seen. It's nothing more than an anti-worker propaganda exercise to make everyone think that workers everywhere deserve everything they get. I am sure such a crass message works on the right wing, but to sane people I would hope they see it for the load of 'bosses good-workers bad' garbage that it is. It's almost as though the bosses of the biggest American industries got together and said 'look we all know how successful the Japanese economy and a lot of that is down to a highly disciplined robotically obedient workforce - how could we make American workers perform similarly?' And they came up with this utter rubbish.At the time I was visiting the cinema at least once a week and saw some very good and alternatively some dreadful films, but this one was in a league of it's own and was singley responsible for me deciding to reduce my cinema visits from then on.

I remember watching "Gung Ho" as a child with my mother, and wondered why she would always cry in the last few minutes. I, of course, found the entire movie hilarious, particularly the mannerisms of the characters. It wasn't until I was much older and watched it again that I realized how much deeper this show actually is.Michael Keaton and Gedde Watanabe shine in their roles as the reluctant mediators. Keaton ceases to amaze me with his real-life style of line delivery, and Watanabe adds humor and pathos to the mix. I also thought that Patti Yasutake (Umeki) was simply fabulous in her role as the comic relief.I think this movie is one of the most underrated films of the 80s. We can all learn a lesson from the merging of the American and Japanese workers in this film...sometimes you really *can* have "the best of both worlds." And now I understand why my mother felt the way she did in those closing moments. I'd rather have one of those cars, too.