Gran Torino is an american film produced and realised by the famous actor Clint Eastwood. Released in 2008, the film was a success and generated 269 000 000 dollars.
The main character : Walter Kowalski
Walter Kowalski is the character is the main character of the film, played by Clint Eastwood. Veteran of the Korean War, Walter Kowalski is an old hardened racist, who lives alone with his dog Daisy. His wife just died and his children are grown and have their own families. He doesn´t rely on anybody, not even on God. His wife was christian, she told the priest Janovich to force her husband to confess after her death, at least once in his life. This one will try several times, in vain ...
The Hmong people
As we said, Walter lives alone in a quiet neighborhood, just next to Hmong people. The Hmong are an asian population coming from the south of China. Because of the war, he hates them and doesn't maintain any friendly relationship. Though, one day, a hmong girl called Sue have troubles with gangsters who annoy her and her friend. Fortunately, Walter was riding around and saw what happened. Then he decided to rescue the Hmong girl and take her back to home.
After this incident, Hmong people will be very grateful to Walter for what he did. They start giving him a lot of gifts ( typical Hmong food, flowers...). Moreover, Sue start to build relationships with the old man.
She visits him sometimes, she invits him to meals...
The disruptive element
Now that they are close neighbors, Walter and Sue see often each other. One day, Walter was invited by Sue. This day, Walter will meet Thao, Sue's brother. Thao is a sixteen-year-old boy, living with is family. All the people around him treats him like a sissy, because of his behaviour. He's only doing things like gardening, washing the dishes and normally, in the Hmong tradition, these things are reserved to girls.
Tired of this reputation, Thao is lost and doesn't know what to do. His cousin does. This one his completely different from Thao. He's a gangster and have his own band. He's tired from seeing his cousin treated like a sissy. So he decides to enroll him in the gang, but there's one condition. Thao must prove he's a tough guy, by doing a crazy thing, like stealing the neighbor's Gran Torino. Not sure about he's going to do, Thao doesn't think and do what his cousin asked him to do, but he failed. Walter heard that there was someone in his garage and went down immediately. Thao escaped.
Thao and Walter
After that Thao failed to steal Walter's car, his cousin comes back to give him something else to do. But Thao doesn't want to do this anymore, so does his sister. So a fight begins. But one more time, Walter intervenes and cast Thao's cousin and his gang out.
The Hmong family is one more time very grateful. Later, Walter will know that it was Thao who tried to steal his car. So, the Hmong boy will have to work for Walter to compensate what he did. Walter gives the boy work to do and the two characters spend more and more time together. Thao is even closer to Walter than Walter's children.
They are getting along very well. Thao is really doing well, and so, Walter buys him new tools and transmits him his passion for DIY. The new relation between Thao and the old man isn't very appreciated by Thao's cousin. One day after the work, Thao is coming back to home, but his cousin and his come to annoy him and start troubles. They break some of his tools and even burn his face with a cig.
Finally...
After the last incident, Thao doesn't work for Walter any more. Walter notices that the young boy doesn't come any more, so he goes to see him to check what's happening. When the old man see the kid's face, he understands what happened. He decides to venge the boy and break the face of the gansgter who burnt Thao's face. But the gang will also venge himself. They break Sue's face...
To stop this craziness, Walter decide to give his life. He goes to see the gang in their place and provoke them.
Eventually, the gang shot the old man from everywhere. The old man made sure to have witnesses, in order to send the gangsters to jail. Indeed a lot of people saw what happened, and told all the story to the police.
So, the old man died, and thanks to his death Thao and his family will be in peace.
Walter finally decided to confess just before his final heroic act.
Synthesis
A touching story of an old war veteran, who forgot all the atrocities he lived during the war, thanks to his chinese neighbors. No matter what he said, no matter what he did by the past, he finally accepted God in his heart and finally understand that being alone during the last days of his life is such an horrible thing.
