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Gran Torino [Blu-ray] [2008] Directed by Clint Eastwood List Price: £26.99 Price: £12.98 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Delivery. Details Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk 18 new or used available from £8.70 Average customer review:

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Editorial Reviews

Special Features
• Manning the Wheel: The meaning of manhood as reflected in American car culture
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• Gran Torino: More than a Car: Visit Detroit and the Woodward Dream Cruise, an annual vintage car event where buffs describe the unique bond between men and vehicle.
• Exclusive to Blu-ray: Gran Torino BD-Live:
Warner Bros. BD-Live, which is accessible through internet-connected Blu-ray players (including PlayStation® 3), invites users to experience a variety of exclusive interactive features, such as additional featurettes unique to Warner Bros. BD-Live, sneak peeks and trailers of upcoming Warner Bros. films.

“BD-Live takes the ultimate Hi-Def movie watching experience to a whole new level of exclusivity and interactivity” says Kris Brown, VP Worldwide High Definition. “With BD-Live, content is constantly updated in order to provide the consumer with additional product features beyond the point of sale.” Warner Home Video plans to include BD-Live on several upcoming titles in 2009, which will include expanded interactive and social networking capabilities such as:

• My WB Commentary: Lets you record Picture-in-Picture commentaries over the film using a personal webcam and post them to share with friends and other BD-Live community members.
• Live Community Screening (LCS): Allows users to send invitations and have a virtual screening with friends and family while chatting online together through the BD-Live platform.

BD-Live is only accessible through a Blu-ray Disc™ played on an Internet-connected or Blu-ray player (including PlayStation®3) with BD-Live capabilities and sufficient data storage.

Warner Home Video successfully launched BD-Live in the United States with The Dark Knight in 2008 and has seen continued success with many 2009 titles including Body of Lies and Yes Man. With the release of Gran Torino, the UK, France, Germany and Japan will be the first territories outside of the U.S. to have access to Warner Bros. BD-Live.

Synopsis
For his fourth directorial feature in the span of two years, Clint Eastwood tells the story of a grizzled Korean War vet's reluctant friendship with a Hmong teenage boy and his immigrant family. Set in contemporary Detroit, GRAN TORINO tackles the shifting cultural and economic landscape of not only the Motor City, but America as well. Eastwood stars as Walt Kowalski, an unabashed bigot who never heard a racial insult he didn't love. Bitter, haunted, and full of pride, Walt refuses to abandon the neighbourhood he's lived in for decades despite its changing demographics as he clings desperately to a mindset long since out of step with the times. When his Hmong neighbour Thao tries to steal his prized muscle car as part of a gang initiation, Walt is forced to grapple with the world around him.
GRAN TORINO's approach to the complicated issue of race relations is equal parts Archie Bunker and CRASH. That is to say, there is nothing subtle about Walt's bigotry, yet his misanthropy knows no bounds, and Eastwood does a remarkable job of finding the humour in Walt's equal opportunity racism. More than simply a racial morality tale, however, GRAN TORINO is about the unlikely bonds that people form to navigate the subtle complexities of everyday life. Like MILLION DOLLAR BABY, GRAN TORINO explores the challenging yet rich new world that can open up when individuals let down their guard, even if for just a moment. Estranged from his family and his church, and without any sense of personal peace, Walt offers all that he has to Thao and his family, namely wisdom and protection. When tragedy strikes the family, Eastwood allows a little classic Harry Callahan to poke through, but the surprising finale posits a hero that Dirty Harry would never have the guts to be. It's a potent symbolic gesture to Eastwood's own growth as a storyteller.

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Customer Reviews

Amazing!!!
I went to see this film at the cinema and when it ended i would have happily have sat through it again. For a couple of minutes after it finished nobody moved and all I could think was wow!. It really is a good film and I have heard some reviewers say that some of the performances of the minor charactors were not great but I felt that I was watching real people in a real situation. Clint Eastwood is not a young man any more but I had no trouble believing that he was a hard man who could still instill the fear of God. I can't wait for it to come out on DVD so that I can watch it again. It's just what we need, a real modern day hero.

Gran Torino - Blu-ray Info
Version: AUS, Japan, UK, EU / Warner / Region Free
VC-1 BD-50 / AACS / Advanced Profile 3
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Running time: 1:56:34
Movie size: 31,51 GB
Disc size: 35,35 GB
Total bit rate: 36.04 Mbps
Average video bit rate: 26.99 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1344 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1344 kbps / 16-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio German 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Italian 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Japanese 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / Dolby Surround

Subtitles: English, English SDH, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish
Number of chapters: 29

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Version: U.S.A / Warner / Region Free
Disc size: 33,45 GB
Movie size: 29,70 GB
Average video bit rate: 26.99 Mbps
Total bit rate: 33.98 Mbps

Dolby TrueHD Audio English 1344 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1344 kbps / 16-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Portuguese 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps

Subtitles: English (SDH), English, French, Portuguese, Spanish

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#Manning the Wheel (HD - 9m:23s)
#Gran Torino: More Than a Car (HD - 3m:57s)
#DVD Digital Copy
#The Eastwood Way (HD - 19m:17s)
#BD-Live enabled

Grand Finale
This is a review of the Blu-Ray DVD Gran Torino.

First of all I did not at any time think 'Wow! What a stunning Blu-Ray picture in 1080P !' That's because from start to finish it looked like a normal standard-def DVD. The extras and options are good however, with spoken language options English (inc Dolby TrueHD), English descriptive narration, French, Dutch, Italian and Castellano. Subtitles excellent - English, French, German, Italian, Castellano, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Chinese and Korean. There is the facility to set up an account with Warner Bros BD-Live, offering on-line up-to-date movie trailers, further information about the Gran Torino film among much more, all of which was easy to do with a WiFi enabled PS3.

The 5-star rating applies mainly to the film itself rather than its technical features. You've got to hand it to Clint Eastwood, whose last acting role this apparently was. This is his 66th film as an actor, and his 34th (but not last) as a director. Yet he's 79 years of age, which is awesome considering he's more than doing the numbers - no, this is a fine piece of acting by any standard and he is as magnetic to watch as ever. In this quirky but realistic story he plays Walt Kowalski, a grumpy, humourless, bigoted Polish American, recently widowed and still haunted by memories of the Korean War more than half a century earlier. He worked at Ford in Detroit most of his working life, and probably his proudest possession is his 1972 Ford Torino. When the film first came out about a year ago I had the impression that he was a racist, but that isn't accurate; he doesn't really like anybody, not even his own sons and grandchildren, and just wants to be left alone in peace, with his labrador as his only welcome companion. His next-door neighbours are of Hmong descent, a culture from a mixture of the Asian countries of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. One of them, a young man called Thao, is bullied by a mainly Hispanic gang into stealing the Torino, which is when an unlikely relationship between Kowalski and Thao begins.

This is a character-driven contemporary drama from start to finish, deliberately old-school in keeping with the personality of Kowalski himself, and while it is chock-full of expletives it is nevertheless frequently very funny as well, with most of the laughs coming from Eastwood's ironic, dead-pan expressions or grumbles, even if he doesn't look as if he feels like laughing himself. It has almost nothing to do with racism at all, instead it is a mildly uplifting tale of a man acting as mentor and father-figure to a youngster in danger of taking the wrong path in life. Eastwood occasionally displays some Dirty Harry-esque moments with his growly threats to get off of his lawn, whether this is a deliberate parody of himself isn't clear but it's also one of the few examples of him slipping out of the unique character that is Walt Kowalski, a role he fills to near perfection throughout. As he has done countless times throughout his career, Eastwood carries this film (despite a very good supporting cast) and in spite of his advancing years he's still very much the powerful leading man he has always been. Very few actors have equalled him for consistency and strength over such a long period - he's been at the top for well over 50 years - and I wonder if anyone will match him in the future.

In summary, an amusing but serious story, entertaining and thought-provoking, and a fitting closure to a magnificent acting career.