Those scenes of backyard barbecues and weekend fishing trips offer some of the few moments of respite in this otherwise bleak account of what happens when a handful of haves attempt to exploit thousands of have-nots, and of the implications of China's rapid encroachment on foreign markets. FGA brought 200 Chinese workers to Dayton to work in tandem with the Americans, and despite the barriers between them, real friendships were forged. Much of it was damning, but some of it was funny and even heartening. You see what they saw and hear what they heard, and they saw and heard a lot. Reichert and Bognar's verite style takes you everywhere they went. The Fuyao Group, miraculously, agreed to the terms, which suggests either ignorance or hubris on the company's part. This, as far as Cao is concerned, cannot happen. This presents a problem for Cao and his American executives, leading to a war between those pushing to unionize and those who recognize that a unionized workforce means a loss of absolute control. When the factory doesn't meet OSHA safety standards, or they're expected to work without breaks or overtime, they complain. Their counterparts back in Dayton, meanwhile, seem lazy and inefficient, but also to possess a sense of agency. The Americans watch with a mixture of bewilderment and awe as the Chinese workers chant propagandistic Fuyao slogans before each shift, and then dive into their menial tasks with the unquestioning diligence of machines.

When the film crew goes to a Fuyao factory in China with a team of American supervisors from the FGA factory, the contrast is brought into sharp relief. The American executives, on the other hand, were raised in a country where people have rights, and to willfully ignore them in service of the bottom line is a choice, not a default. As far as he's concerned, his employees are lucky to have jobs at all, and they should be grateful. Cao, who is in his 70s, grew up in a Communist regime, and says he would get so hungry as a child that he'd scream in agony. Chairman Cao comes across as an autocrat with no compunction about flouting workers' rights and safety standards, but it's the American executives who seem the most heartless.

American factory