“Wake up little brother, cuz you know you’re just as brown as the rest of us.”

I think this was the theme to the whole movie. In the beginning, Ben seemed embarrassed to be Filipino. He didn’t want his friends to go inside of his house, and see all of his Filipino decorated rooms, and his Filipino family. His mom was very welcoming the whole time and always wanted to feed his friends. He also didn’t seem like he knew many Filipino traditions, like the rest of his family did. At the party, he didn’t know he was supposed to bless his grandpa when he walked in. He also looked very surprised when he saw his sister’s dance, like he has never seen a dance like that before, and he didn’t know how to speak Tagalog like many of them did.

Towards the end of the movie, Ben finally starts to accept his culture. He realized that all of the things his family was doing were cool. He looked very proud of his sister when she did her performance, and he was amazed at his fathers performance. I think that he saw a side of his father that he never knew about before. When he heard his family talking about how his father gave up his band when his kids were born and moved them to America, I think he realized that his dad did everything he could to give them a good life! I think it also really showed how he was accepting of his family when he decided to show his dad his art portfolio, and tell him that he decided not to go to UCLA.

Keep the tears in Molly! I love this movie…I haven’t seen it since it first came out in 2008, but I am a fan of Clint Eastwood anyways!

It’s been so long since I have seen the movie, so I forgot about everything that happened.  In the beginning I was thinking about why the name of the movie was ‘Gran Torino.’ I knew Gran Torino was the type of car that Walt owned, but what was so important about the car that the whole movie was named after it?

Towards the end I realized that the car represented the relationship between Thao and Walt, and how Walt’s feelings about Asians and Asian Americans had evolved. Before Walt knew his neighbors, he already thought so horribly of them because they reminded him of horrible memories in the Korean War. After he began to know who Thao and Sue really were, he realized that they weren’t the type of people he was thinking of. One of his worst memories of the war was killing the innocent young boy, and he is reminded of this every day when he looks at Thao.  His vision of Asians and Asian Americans started to turn positive when he became close to he became close to his neighbors, and cared enough about them to protect them.

When they were reading his will at the very end, and he gave the Gran Torino to Thao, it showed his love for him, it showed that he truly did care for him, and that he finally accepted Asians.

Okay so what?! I Honestly haven’t decided what I think of this movie quite yet. It was entertaining, but I still have mixed feelings about it.

1. So in the very beginning of the movie, we saw that somebody was buried… but by the end of the movie, I forgot all about it and I was wondering where the conflict was. Like most movies have a huge conflict in them, and the movie is focused around it the entire time… but with this one, it was kind of pushed off to the side until the very end… then I was like “Oh yea, there’s a dead guy.”

2. “Population Control: Why retarded people and handicap people should be executed.” WTF?! This pissed me off.

3. I liked Ben throughout the whole movie. He made stupid decisions at times, but he was the character that the audience tends to side with. He just seemed so nice! (Besides the fact that he beat Steve with a baseball bat) But I wanted him to be able to get with Stephanie, so I was happy when she was his New Years kiss

4. Virgil is a cry baby. But I felt bad for him, because I am a cry baby too and I know how it feels to be in situations that you don’t want to be in, but don’t know a way out of.

5. It was interesting how they played off of the Model Minority Myth… then showed what could happen behind the scenes :0

6. Did they REALLY have to kill Steve? I know he was a jerk but geeze.

7. “If you’re clever enough, you could get away with anything” (;

8. “When you have everything you want, what’s left?” When I was like 8, I remember talking to my niece (also like 8 )about being the richest person in the world. I decided that it didn’t sound fun because then there is nothing left to do or accomplish.

9. Ben must have felt so guilty kissing Stephanie right after she was asking him if he has seen Steve, and saying she was worried about him.

10. That’s it for now….

So I didn’t think I would like this movie as much as I did! I had to leave about an hour early which was disappointing because the beginning was very good! I think this movie helped me to understand Japanese Culture even more.

The scene where her dad killed himself in front of everyone was so sad Especially since the daughter had to watch. My dad died when I was 16 and it was the worst moment in my whole life. He died at home, while I was at my friends house. I remember every second of that day perfectly and it runs through my mind often…but I couldn’t imagine watching it happen. It would definitely scar me more than I already am.

The part when Kai was beat for fighting in the match, was very sad to watch. He didn’t have much of a choice because the guy who was supposed to fight was put under a spell.

I really enjoyed this movie, although it was really sad and I wanted to cry at times!

Binh was so brave to go travel to a new country to go find his dad… somebody he never even met before! But it’s really sad how he was treated the whole time. I couldn’t believe how they starved the people on the ship, and caused them to fight until their death. And how so many people died while trying to start a new and better life. The worst part of the movie was when Binh’s little brother died and he had to throw him off of the ship. I don’t know how he even got through that. Their first impressions of America also had to be so bad because they weren’t able to enjoy the place they’ve been waiting to come to…instead they had to spend years repaying their debt.

I am happy that he found his dad and was able to work on the ranch with him. His father also brought up a few times how he had such good memories in Vietnam when he was married, which Im sure Binh was relieved to hear! But what Really bothered me is that Binh never told his father that he was his son! It really frustrated me when the movie ended because I wanted to see his reaction!

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