Can someone tell me the Gran Torino means??

Rating: 8/10 (26 September 2010)

Gran Torino is the story of Dirty Harry I mean Walt Kowalski (this is obviously Eastwood), who is a Korean War Veteran with a strong racist streak. A family of Hmong move in next door that includes the young and brave Sue (Ahney Her) and the younger and unsure Thao (Bee Vang) When Thao gets rough housed into joining his Cousin's gang, he tries to steal Walt's Gran Torino. Walt then starts on a journey that will make him a hero to the whole neighborhood.
First off I have to say that I learned more racist terms for Asians in this movie, than I even knew existed. Eastwood shoots them out every chance he gets, pretty much throughout the entire movie. This isn't a complaint. It actually gives the character a good multi-sidedness to him that evolves throughout the whole movie and serves as a reason to hate Walt, a humorous couple of situations, and remind you of the steely coldness behind it all.
This movie really did most things pretty good, it focuses a lot on themes of family, expectation, and even throws in a few religious themes to go along with it, both accepting that religion and making fun of that religion. The movie really does good in dealing a blow to the whole gang banger community as a whole, as well as exposing the trashiness of it all, including the bottom feeding depths they will sink to.
When its not dealing with overarching themes, Gran Torino focuses on the relationship between Sue and Thao with Walt. After Thao attempts to steal Walt's Torino, Sue starts a small friendship with Walt, and eventually works her charm and introduces him to her culture. This relationship leads to Thao working for Walt, who teaches Thao how to "become a man" in the most humorous part of the movie.
There are only a couple of complaints that I have with the movie. First, the climax was obvious and long coming for a while. Even the "twist" that it has I felt was easy to read and figure out. This is only because the ten minutes between the climax and the conflict that arises before it. Not to mention it had that mildly cheesy and overused montage of the old guy *ahem* preparing himself.
The other complaint is that both the Asian Actors (Ahney and Bee) had scenes where the sincerity of their acting seemed to drop, or just wasn't very good. That being said, Clint Eastwood was always acting best when his mouth was closed, but I can reasonably say that Clint Eastwood is aware of how Clint Eastwood can and should act. That is why I expect he has always been Dirty Harry in a different role.
But in the end, these are small complaints that only poke small holes in the very enjoyable experience of watching Gran Torino. My recommendation is that you absolutely must see this movie, especially if you have any mild misogyny at all. It sucks that it isn't in movie theaters (not that I think you need theater quality to see this movie at all) but let me say this: If you own a movie theater, take the film and watch it there.