Swallowtail Butterfly

Like many of you, I search the internet for unknown gems of cinema. I happened to pass by a thread on powerful films. I kept on seeing the same names: City of God, Carandiru, Pulp Fiction, Amores Perros, Saving Private Ryan and then I saw this. The person talked highly of it, I researched it a little more. Being a very big fan of Asian film I decided to find it cheap, which I did on eBay, and then buy it. One of the best buys I've had in a while. A few other good buys were DEAD MAN'S SHOES, THE DESCENT, BAD BOY BUBBY and A ROOM FOR ROMEO BRASS.

This story pretty much has it all. It has all the elements of a great drama. To name a few, it was funny(love how they spoke English), tragic, thoughtful, violent and memorable. I apologize but I'm not going to describe the movie to you, because it's slightly difficult to do. I can say that it's about people called Yentowns who live in a city named Yentown. Sounds simple, but the movie delivers on so many levels that it's anything but.

I hope you enjoy the film as much as me. If you enjoyed the movies I mentioned above, there are not many reason for you not to. It's not a perfect film, but it definitely gets the job done. It's really a fantastic film.

I read through the comments on this film, and was not surprised to see that some people did not enjoy it. That, in my case, is always the sign of a truly great, immensely artistic film. I'm sure it bored some people to tears, confused others, and downright p***ed off a few.

I loved it. I enjoy foreign films, especially good asian films. I loved "In the Heat of the Sun" and "Made in Hong Kong", but this is probably my favorite out of all of them. It's close to the best thing I've ever seen. I like the style, I like the fact that it's in three languages, and I even like the fact that some in the cast were not speaking their first languages. I think that fit into the message of the film, which is that everyone there was in some way or another displaced. I think the idea of a movie about immigrants trying to fit in where they're not wanted is perfect. I think that the speech by the non-English speaking white guy who has never been to America was the summation of the whole film, and Glico's rendition of "My Way" was its heart. Absolutely beautiful, it encompassed so many different aspects of Japanese film-making, and put unique twists on all of them. Excellent movie. If you find it somewhere, watch it. If you're disappointed in the film, sell it on Ebay. If you post it enough times it'll be snapped up by somebody.

This beautiful movie is set in present-day Japan, but shows to the rest of the world what the future might look like if the WTO brings about their goals. The film centers on some losers of globalization and free world trade who make it big when they discover a tape ("My Way"!) which allows them to make counterfeit Yen. The money soon destroys their solidarity though, and separately they have to face their own problems (expulsion to China, the Yakuza who's after the tape, drugs and a nosy journalist who wants to find the dirt in Glico's success story).

But it's a modern fairy tale, not a naturalistic drama, so expect miracles and uplifting twists and turns rather than a depressing end. The director obviously loves all his characters and so will you; the black boxer with the innocent soul of a child, the philosophical doctor/tattoo-artist, the American who speaks only Japanese, the killer with the b/w-painted face and the cool female sniper are all wonderful characters and these are just the small roles!

If you love movies where people speak in different tongues (in this case Japanese, Mandarin and English) this is THE film for you. If you don't, still go see this masterpiece of innovative filmmaking. You'll thank me for the recommendation.

This is not anything like Iwai Shunji's "Shigatsu Monogatari", with its rather innocent themes and situations. In contrast, "Swallowtail Butterfly" jumps right in with stylized shots of destitute living, seedy shantytowns full of drugs and prostitution, and somewhat gratuitous violence. It was surprising that more than a third of the dialogue was in some form of English, seeing as how the Yentowns all seemed to come from the lower rungs of their respective non-English-speaking countries (i.e., those not able to attend English classes at the grade school and higher level), excepting of course the American boxer. How ironic that they managed to speak better English than most Japanese who have taken several years of English in school. The non-English-speaking white guy was an interesting touch, as was the casting of Yosuke Eguchi as an ethnic Chinese gangster. By far the most confusing characters were Yamaguchi Tomoko and Watabe Atsuro, cast as some sort of foreign (US?)-trained counter narcotics operators. Obviously, such a "black" unit would not be politically viable in Japan, hence the presence of an American-accented squad leader and the exclusive use of (bad) English between Yama-chan and Watabe-kun. I realize that their main objective was to terminate Rianki's counterfeiting ring, but why would they do it by helping Yentowns scam millions of yen from cash machine owners? Don't even get me started on the impossibility of taking out a target on a moving train. Surely, Iwai Shunji's watched "La Femme Nikita" too many times, but even Luc Besson wouldn't have one of his characters pull off such an impossible objective. Overall, the movie was depressing, enlightening, sad, disturbing, and in some ways entertaining (Tomo-chan's scene with the anti-tank weapon was immensely funny). Did i like it? Well, yes.

It is a horrible shame that this film has never been released in the United States- I shudder to think how many other films of this caliber I will never see just because Americans hate subtitles. If you are reading this- FIND THIS MOVIE right now!!! Inport it!!! It's worth it, I promise!