Where to watch Gran Torino (2008)
Gran Torino is available to stream in GB on MAX and Netflix. It can also be rented or bought from AppleTV and Amazon.
A grieving Korean War veteran, isolated from his family and neighbors, reluctantly becomes involved with a Hmong teenager after catching him attempting to steal his treasured classic car. As tensions rise with a local gang, an unlikely friendship challenges the veteran’s prejudice, loneliness, and ideas about protecting his community.
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Brian Haley, Geraldine Hughes, Dreama Walker, Brian Howe, John Carroll Lynch, William Hill, Brooke Chia Thao, Chee Thao
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Trivia & production notes
- Nick Schenk wrote much of the Gran Torino script at a bar called Grumpy's in Northeast Minneapolis, composing up to 25 pages in a single night while working day jobs.
- Clint Eastwood directed and starred in Gran Torino after filming delays pushed his other project Invictus to early 2009, opening a window in summer 2008 for this production.
- The screenplay submitted to Warner Bros. was so unchanged by the production that Schenk noted not a single syllable was altered beyond switching Minneapolis references to Detroit ones, a practice he described as virtually unprecedented.
- Michigan's 42-percent tax credit on the film's budget helped Warner Bros. greenlight the project, with state representative Bill Huizenga helping to coordinate the incentive package.
- Widgren's Barber Shop in Royal Oak was chosen from 60 candidates across Metro Detroit because producers favored its antique interior, and the shop's owner Ted Widgren was asked to appear as an extra in the barber scene.
- Most of the Hmong cast were inexperienced actors with limited English proficiency, and Eastwood used minimal direction, avoiding calling out "action" at the start of shoots to keep performers from overthinking their performances.
- The Hmong dialogue in the film was entirely improvised by actors since the screenplay was written only in English, creating translation challenges for subtitles after filming wrapped.
- Bee Vang later alleged that Eastwood did not allow Hmong actors to modify their lines despite earlier claims of encouraging improvisation, and that other white cast members sometimes excluded Hmong actors by assuming they didn't understand English.
- Producer Robert Lorenz chose Detroit as the setting partly because the protagonist is a retired auto plant worker, tying the character to Motor City's Ford Motor Company heritage, though some Minnesota-specific dialogue references felt out of place when relocated.
- Scholars have documented that producers selected viewpoints from Hmong cultural consultants with more lenient takes on cultural accuracy while dismissing objections from other Hmong cast and crew who felt elements were exaggerated or distorted for dramatic effect.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Gran Torino, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.
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