Sue talking to Walt- “The girls go to college and the boys go to jail.”

Walt watching gang go by- “This kid doesn’t have a chance” (talking about Thao).

Walt has more fun with his hmong neighbors than his “own spoiled rotten family.”

It’s quotes like the ones listed above that showcase Walt’s transformation into a more empathetic character towards the Hmong people; specifically towards Thao. Over time Walt begins showing empathy and kindness towards Thao and his sister Sue. Some ways he does this is through saving Sue from a gang, spending time with Thao even when Thao doesn’t need to work for him anymore, teaching Thao to talk “like a real man”, letting Thao borrow his tools, giving him a construction job and paying for his gear, trying to keep the gang away from Thao, letting Thao use his gran torino car for a date, and sacrificing himself to save Thao and Sue from the gang.  In my opnion the movie was really beautiful especially because of the ending. Knowing what it feels like to live without peace, Walt realizes Sue and Thao will never have peace until the gang is gone. The movie tricks the audience into thinking Walt and Thao are going to murder the gang. However, Walt locks Thao in his basement telling him he doesn’t want Thao to live with blood on his hands like the way he does. This is when the audience is tricked once again into believing Walt will murder the gang. But instead, Walt goes to the gang member’s house and waits until there are witness to fully antagonize the gang. The gang then shoots Walt dead believing him to be pulling out a gun. And because of the witnesses the gang members go to prison. Finally Sue and Thao are free of the gang. As a final act of kindness Walt leaves his gran torino to Thao. Not only was the film about redemption, but the film was also about self-realizations, and acts of selflessness. Another important piece of the film was the characters other than Walt. For example Sue never judges Walt for his racist remarks, she only see’s his inner kindness. Without Sue, its hard to tell if Walt would soften as much as he did towards Thao/ the Hmong people.

This reading as a whole had a broader perspective on the minority groups coming into American and how their problems and triumphs occurred. While a lot of the book was somewhat dull factoids it was interesting learning of how the minority communities saw each other. Particularly the disdain of the Koreans towards Japan, even encouraging America to go to war with Japan even before Pearl Harbor. See the justified hatred from the first generation die out mostly onto the next generations made me realize how much environment has to play on peoples identity. The ultra-nationalist Koreans wanted their American born children to never forget Korea and eventually return there to help insure its prosperity. Though that did not happen and people have the tendency to care more about their birthplace rather than their ancestors origins.

Beyond new interactions I didn’t know of I found the recurring theme of “minorities are not treated the same as whites” extremely drawn out, but that is due to my own bias of reading all about Japanese American bias in fall quarter. As a fresh reader to this content it would of had a greater effect on me but after thousands of pages detailing the injustices of white America to Japanese Americans it just wasn’t surprising. However sad that may be it did increase the knowledge I had that the American Dream for most minority groups was a nightmare.

“Pow, pow, pow.”
-Walt Kowalski towards the Hmong gang members as they rolled past his house.

I’ve heard people talk this film before, but I never took the time to watch it. Now that I have, I’m surprised by what I’ve seen. Clint Eastwood plays as a Korean War veteran who is probably the most racist character I’ve seen so far in a movie. Despite his past, he begins interacting with the Hmong community after saving Thao from being taken by Hmong gang members. He is bitter at first, but starts accepting their gifts after he gets to know Sue, the vocal one of the Hmong community. Eastwood’s role in the movie is more reminiscent of the “mighty whitey” trope, considering he is the only guy in the movie to help the Hmong community, especially with Thao and Sue. When he casually talks with the Hmong people, he does not stop his racial slurs, but this could be due to that his character is used to it ever since his involvement in the Korean War.

For character analysis, the three prominent characters have roles that support each other:

Walt is the protagonist of the movie, represented as an ailing old man who has a past that he can’t forget. He can also be perceived as the wise old man later in the movie. His troubled past affects how he treats everyone around him, especially the Hmong people, which he affiliates with the enemies he killed. Although he is unkind in the beginning, he begins to open up to the Hmong community after they recognize him as a hero, leading up to him starting to give a damn about them. He pulls off a noble sacrifice at the end to guarantee Thao, Sue, and the Hmong community’s future is not plagued by the lowlife scums again.

Sue plays as the link between Walt and the Hmong community. She is a braver woman than her “boyfriend” and is not afraid to say what she wants or talk to whomever. This impresses Walt enough that he likes her enough to talk and make fun of her. This brings a friendliness of Walter unseen by the rest of Walt’s family. She constantly reminds Walt of her brother Thao and is keen enough to see later on that Walt cares more for Thao each day he works at his place. Later on she becomes a victim to assault and rape by the Hmong gang members and is in such a terrible condition that it pushes Walt to his limits.

Thao is basically a walking carpet in the first moments of the movie. He never retaliates much and is not very assertive towards his own goals. While he is nice to his parents and neighbors, he is overly passive that he becomes victim to his cousin’s gang’s coercion. It’s not until he is almost caught by Walt when attempting to steal his Gran Torino that Thao learns life lessons that Walt believes he needs. Thao begins to care for Walt in return, noticing that his health is deteriorating. Walt entrusts Thao a job, tools, and an attitude that should get him through life. After Sue is beaten and raped, Thao goes to Walt and asks for assistance to “take em’ down”. Knowing that Thao is inexperienced with extreme violence, Walt locks him in a basement to keep him safe not only from getting killed, but also from the psychological scars that can be inflicted through killing. In short, Thao is like the son Walt never had.

On a side note though, the actor for Thao, Bee Vang, is older than Ahney Her, the actor for Sue, by just about a year. Just throwing that out there.

This movie is so good. I liked it.

I judge that  Walt has an old idea and he is racist. For instance, he says “Asian girls should be smart,”  ”dragon lady,” ”Asian is good at math,” etc.. It was kind of funny to hear those images toward Asian Walt had.

Korean War has an impact on  Walf a lot even though it is for only three years in his life and long time ago. He does not forget something. He might feel guilty about killing people in the war. It might make him obstinate. He might protect himself by not trusting somebody else. After his wife’s death, Walt has only his dog because he does not trust his sons too.

Walt meets Thao who Walt feels closed as a son, and then he changes a lot. Although he used to distrust Hmong neighbor, he realize his neighbor’s kindness after he goes to Hmong people’s party. At first, Hmong people judge Walt, but finally they serve Walt a lot of foods and become friendly. He is racist unless he understands different culture and races. But, now he knows. At the end of this movie, Walt gives his life to protect Thao and his family from gangs. I was moved very much at that moment.

This is my second time to watch this movie. My first time was 5 years ago, so I haven’t remember well how I felt after watching this movie. However, I remembered one thing really clear what I felt, when I watched it first time. It was that Walt who was the main character looked like my grandfather. So, Walt remained me the memories with my grandfather. Both of them were too stubborn in their ideals. Also they had kind of racial ideals. My grandfather used to be a soldier at the Japanese Chinese War, so he went and fought there. I can understand the reason why people who had experiences fighting as militaries had stereotypes against foreign people, because they had opposed other counties. In this movie, his son said “he is still in Korean.” I agreed with his words. His mind had been in Korean before he felt people’s love. However, when I saw his tear for Thao, I thought he was released from himself finally. Until then, because he closed his mind, he couldn’t feel people’s love. The fault was in himself, but he blamed others as being a racist. He could change his mind, thanked to have connections with people who had different backgrounds. Today, through this movie, I felt again that making connection with people is good way to be gone racism in this world.

Holding a hand out in a shape of a gun and bang, bang, bang. The dramatic/comedy of Gran Torino where Clint Eastwood plays an American war veteran in a neighborhood where some would not care for his kind. Wanted to be left alone and then everything changed. I thought that the scene where Thao was pushing the tree in the yard reminded me of life itself where Walt and the priest were talking about life and death. Just keep pushing and stay strong. I like how they address the stereotype of Hmong girls go to college and the boys go to jail, and I don’t know how that happens, but some would imply a non father role model figure such as Thao that was looking up to Walt. Walt was keeping him out of trouble and telling him that he had his whole life ahead of him. Horrible things that were mentioned in this film and Walt saying carrying a burden all of that and not confess to it because he was strong willed. I respect the character for that. Also I like the traditional customs that were keep in Thaos house where everyone would look down at him and looking someone in the eye is disrespect and wanted to know is that just Hmong people or do other cultures abide by that too?

Gran Torino

The muscle of cars casting people off his yards, knocking pricks out knows how to clear a crowd, tries to explain leave me alone, Spider causing trouble, he says he won’t be here for long. He protects his own, his house, his dog, his car, himself, he knows what hes doing, hes a Korean war machine from hell.

Just a little something I was messing with as far as the movie goes.

“How many rats can you get into one room?” That was the first thing that Walt ever said based on his first encounter with Thao and Sue’s family. Walt was an all American white male, who believed in American made anything and beer. He was a veteran that fought in the Korean war which made life for Walt hell. Walt was very, very racist and crude as well…In this film, you either love Walt or you hate him. Walt has been carrying around the burden of what he had to do while he as on Korea. He talks about he justifies his actions with “well that’s how we handled things in Korea.” Over the course of the film, Walt does start to warm up to Thao and Sue’s family, softening his thinking about all asians in general.

Of course from the obvious “white savior complex” the Walts character holds, there is also a lot of gender expectations when came to the Hmong culture. Thao was made fun of because he didn’t act like “the man of the house”. His other family members would also make fun of the fact that Thao didn’t do manly activities like he was expected to. He liked to garden, which was considered to be a women’s job in the Hmong culture. On the topic of gender roles, Sue was a very strong female character. In the film, it was described that the women went to school and got an education while the men went to jail.

Throughout the film, I could watch it again, however I could do without Walt’s constant racism. I fee like..Ok we get it!!!! Enough..I felt uncomfortable after a while watching it. Just when you thought Walt was finally comfortable with Sue and Thao’s family/culture, he would through in another racist remark. At the end of the film, I do not think that Walt giving Thao his Gran Torino justifies anything that he did during the film. The director just wanted things to end on a “lighter” note.

Here’s the trailer **      

Click here to view the embedded video.