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Just finished watching it on TV , and i must say its beautiful but so sad.
What do you guys think about the ending?
Is there no way for police to deal with those situations? that someone has to die before something can be done?

Its so depressing...
Which reminds me , 70% of asian elementary school boys around grade 5 and up tries to imitate gang members ,
and atleast 1/10 is friend of someone related to gangs.

Why does this happen to our society? What can be done?

How does our society fall so low where killing someone = supposed to make you tough / manly / have guts?

Kids are dumb, i dont think we CAN do anything about it. I was really stupid and badly behaved when i was a teenager.. i guess you just have to try and tutor kids through that rebellious stage that almost all of them go through. I thought the movie was kinda boring though, he was just Dirty Harry all over again!

Well they're basically imune to the law until they reach 18 or 21 depending on where they are.
I thought the movie was good

LunaHound wrote:
How does our society fall so low where killing someone = supposed to make you tough / manly / have guts?

It isn't really a huge leap of thought. Power is equivalent to manliness, and the power to take the life of another is pretty significant.

Society, any conceivable society, does not value death as an extension of desire. It creates too many problems. However, that concept is far more difficult than the one behind gang killings; creating the world we see.

Anyway, its not just minority kids. I grew up in a wealthy, white suburb. I knew plenty of gang members. Its part of life.

mattyrm wrote:Kids are dumb, i dont think we CAN do anything about it. I was really stupid and badly behaved when i was a teenager.. i guess you just have to try and tutor kids through that rebellious stage that almost all of them go through. I thought the movie was kinda boring though, he was just Dirty Harry all over again!

Whats depressing is , to a degree i understand the gangs in ghetto USA ( where they have to act tough or get beat up i guess )
but I live in Canada , and the asian gang members i see here are like RICH immigrants where their parents just send them money over seas
while they drive mercedes.

Whats even worse is my cousin , im really worried about him. He constantly get invited to join gangs because he have this weird
reputation in school. I know he is a really good person and always do good , but it bothers me how he doesnt hold back and beat up asian gang members that harasses
his Caucasian class mates ( himself is asian ). So far ok he is been lucky , and in a degree im lucky too , but i have no intention of testing my luck. Ok he can beat up
people that come at him with knives , but his luck will run out some day if they choose to bring guns. How on earth do i persuade him to stop been so reckless?

Not about the bigger issue, but as far as the movie goes- I absolutely loved it. I think Clint Eastwood is an awesome director... he's definitely got a strong voice and a great style! His new movie (Invictus) is also excellent and thought-provoking about bigger issues.

I found Grand Torino to be a bit contrived and formulamatic (although most films are),but watchable.
I did however particularly like the ending,as it wasn't the "typical Clint Eastwood" ending I had expected

As far as gangs are concerned,they have exsisted in some form or fasion for centuries,and I don't see that ending any time soon.
As was noted,gangs crave power,hell,IMO some of the most rutheless "gangs" aren't hanging on street corners,they are sitting in corparate boardrooms.

LunaHound wrote:Just finished watching it on TV , and i must say its beautiful but so sad.
What do you guys think about the ending?
Is there no way for police to deal with those situations? that someone has to die before something can be done?

Its so depressing...
Which reminds me , 70% of asian elementary school boys around grade 5 and up tries to imitate gang members ,
and atleast 1/10 is friend of someone related to gangs.

Why does this happen to our society? What can be done?

How does our society fall so low where killing someone = supposed to make you tough / manly / have guts?

Coincidence. I saw this last night as well. Great Flick.

With gangs and gang attitude it usually boils down to very simple things. Children need a strong and active role-model as well as a place within their own family dynamic where they feel they belong and are accepted (not pushed away or always told they are wrong). Being social creatures, if they/we do not have this we will look for it elsewhere, often with friends and/or gangs. There will always be (and always have been) gangs and crappy parents (although they have ebbed and flowed within history) but on the whole gangs are a symptom of bigger issues within society. Much of this is actually text-book stuff and Clint Eastwood has illustrated it very well. Walt and Thao are the Father and Son to each other that neither had been satisfied with previously in their lives. In this way it was a happy ending for both characters as Walt was (implied) dying from Lung Cancer, anyway.

Good to see you watched the Greatest Film EVER!!!!

Kids in my school, alot came from New York, where they got beat up by gangs, but since no one here knows that, they put up the
"YO, bitch I killed a pig cause he looked at me wrong mofo!" attitude, and eventually they all congregate and form a gang.
However, none of them have any abiliity whatsoever, so if one were to get in a fight, the only thing you'd have to worry about is
that their twenty friends might show up, then you have to get tired fighting them off.

That's the only experiance with gangs I've had.

Now the mafia, is quite different. I know a lot of buisnesses that could be said to be connected, if you catch my drift.

I liked Gran Torino a bit, but I don't really see the big fuss. It was pretty mixed, with some excellent acting (Eastwood and the young asian girl were excellent) and some not so excellent acting (everyone other than Eastwood and the young asian girl were quite unconvincing), and an interesting enough story that unfortunately was let down by some fairly unsubtle choices (Eastwood's own white family were so horrible, the gangsters seemed motivated by nothing more than the needs of the plot).

Honestly, the best thing about was probably the humour - there was some good laughs that came out of the characters that really helped me like them. It's a decent 7/10 movie.


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LunaHound wrote:How does our society fall so low where killing someone = supposed to make you tough / manly / have guts?

Society hasn't fallen, young boys trying to establish themselves as men through violence is a primal instinct. Lame as all get out, but pretty hard to get rid of.

Take all known MAJOR gang members (and the list for the Bloods and Crips is fairly large); make them dig a trench and then stand them in front of it and shoot them dead.

Good movie too. I even know where I can find a Gran Torino, it's just beyond my finances right now.

Then we could have all the narrow minded red necks dig yet another trench for themselves,followed by the tree hugging safety nazis,then Hollywood political activist..and so on and so on...yes,I'm excited about this plan.

I particularly like the advocacy of violence as the solution.

Yeah because apparently as fast as gangs are swelling that counseling the misfits and financial burdens and drain on our legal system is working?

I actually quite enjoyed it.

8/10

I particularily liked the 'guy talk' they had to teach the asian kid. And I enjoyed the ending becuase it honestly wasn't what I'd been expecting. It turned out to be very self-sacrificial instead of Gung-Ho.

Also, I like how the kid got the car and the crappy family got squat.

Fateweaver wrote:Yeah because apparently as fast as gangs are swelling that counseling the misfits and financial burdens and drain on our legal system is working?

I take it northern Minnesota has been beset by a wave of gang violence?

I've lived in and around Chicago for my entire life (barring my college stint in MN), the notion that gangs are a significant problem is overrated.

Well, at least I don't have to go out and rent it now.... cheers guys!

Its worth watching in order to see The Clint at his best, but its not a good movie.

See Invictus instead.

I'm honestly confused, dogma. Why do you think it's not a decent movie?

Well, I suppose I should qualify my statement. I don't call movies good unless they're...good. I have a very strong distinction between good, and entertaining. I find Gran Torino to be entertaining. I like Clint Eastwood, and he is very good in this movie. However, the movie itself is not good because the actors that aren't Clint Eastwood let it down.

I'm of essentially the same opinion as Sebster, though I would rate the film as a 5/10 rather than 7/10. I would compare Gran Torino to films like Unbreakable, or Collateral.

So where is a movie good, but not entertaining?

All good movies are entertaining, but not all entertaining movies are good.

Truth.

I liked 'Collateral', though.

*shrug*

Meh, I thought it was a good movie. Not great, but still good.

dogma wrote:I'm of essentially the same opinion as Sebster, though I would rate the film as a 5/10 rather than 7/10. I would compare Gran Torino to films like Unbreakable, or Collateral.

Steady on, Collateral is a good movie.

Yeah, I don't know why I listed that one. Maybe I was thinking about themes, rather than quality.

Well-off immigrant kids joining gangs is a way for them to have their own place in a society
where they don't quite fit in.

Albatross wrote:Truth.

I liked 'Collateral', though.

Yanno I did too. Everyone thinks Im nuts but whatever. I also like WaterWorld

and I thought Gran Torino was a really good movie

The whole movie is about identity. All the characters grapple with who they think they are and what their neighbors should be. Kowalski wants the American dream and is afraid of the other. The immigrants struggle to determine if they are Hmong or American.

That conflict always occurs in waves of American immigration. By the third generation most immigrants are fully "American", fluent in English and more able to move up the social ladder than their ancestors.

Gang society itself is a tribal identity.

In the end Kowalski's final act is both selfish and giving. He ends his medical issue before it compromises his opinion of self-reliance, while also having a beneficial, if limited, positive outcome for his neighbors.

Dal'yth Dude wrote:The whole movie is about identity. All the characters grapple with who they think they are and what their neighbors should be. Kowalski wants the American dream and is afraid of the other. The immigrants struggle to determine if they are Hmong or American.

That conflict always occurs in waves of American immigration. By the third generation most immigrants are fully "American", fluent in English and more able to move up the social ladder than their ancestors.

Gang society itself is a tribal identity.

In the end Kowalski's final act is both selfish and giving. He ends his medical issue before it compromises his opinion of self-reliance, while also having a beneficial, if limited, positive outcome for his neighbors.

Nice!

Don't you also think that Walt's relationship with Thao eventually became a resolution for Walt as a way to connect and be a father figure since he never felt satisfied regarding his relationship with his own children?