The Film Gran Torino: An Immigrant Story?

Check out Gran Torino if you want to see a “light” movie touching on some immigration issues.  Clint Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, an unabashedly racist Korean War vet (and retired Detroit auto worker) who reluctantly bonds with an immigrant Asian neighbor over a classic car, his 1972 Gran Torino.  No group eludes Kowalski’s venom, from Latinos to African Americans to Asian Americans (whose different nationalities are well beyond him).  The movie will be seen as over-the-top to some and controversial to others but raises some deeply troubling issues that U.S. society must grapple with.

Here is a critical review of the film that touches on some of the movie’s serious themes.  The film was the subject of a panel at the University of Minnesota on Friday.  Here is a news story about that panel and talking with some of the Hmong actors in the film.

KJ