Swallowtail Butterfly

While I'm particularly fond of Japanese films, I must admit quite a few of them are enjoyable only because of their unique style, not because of their actual content. Films like Shark Skin Man And Peach Hip Girl are fun to watch, but that's all there is to them. Yentown (Swallowtail's original title), on the other hand, is a prime example of Japanese cinema at it's finest. Combining music and politics, drama and action, social commentary and humor, art film and popular film, Yentown is a true post-modern experience, rich both in style and in content.

The film takes place in the Tokyo of near future, in a ghetto inhabited by immigrants from all over Asia. The status of immigrants is a touchy subject in Japan, and it has been widely covered in many of the recent Japanese films. What separates Yentown from them is that it uses the ghetto only as a starting point, and although the hardships of the immigrants (and outsiders in general) are a major theme, it is only one of the numerous subjects the film explores.

Basically, Yentown is about dreams. The story revolves around a group of poverty-stricken immigrants, to whom a sudden twist of fate gives the opportunity to literally make money and thus realize their dreams. Unfortunately, their luck is not without it's consequences, and even if they get what they've always dreamed of, they may realize they've chasen the wrong dream. This may not be the most original of ideas, but the story is told with such energy and originality, and with such sympathetic characters, that the viewer soon forgets the familiriaty of the basic plot.

Yentown is a type of film that gets even better on multiple viewings. The story is told in a non-linear way which can make the film seem a bit confusing, at least when seen for the first time. There are elements (and even characters) in Yentown used mainly as metaphors, and to careless viewer it may appear that the film doesn't quite properly tie up it's threads. But if the viewer has the courage and patience to watch a film quite different from our Western tradition, Yentown will reward him/her with an unique blend of emotion, wit and beauty.

A post-modern adult fairytale like this cannot shows up every year and even today, when I have already seen all of Shunji Iwai's films, I still have no clue about where did this one surface. It is fairly easier to comprehend ‘love letter' or ‘April story', based on a single good idea, or maybe a little more hard work and careful planning with ‘picnic', but there is no fixed procedure to follow in order to conjure up a desperate complex like this.

The hand-held camera movements and those documentary-like jumping shoots, which make some people uncomfortable in other Iwai's film, are more balanced with montage here. Nevertheless, it is the director's favorite way of seeing this world and had been intentionally deployed just as a reflection of personal disposition but not a obligation in a drama.

Note that it is vital to have all those cool figures, even the cameos, which is a test of originality almost all pseudo-filmmakers would fall short and, on the other hand, the audiences never fail to appreciate. However, unlike his contemporary Kitano, Iwai seems have been running out of sarcastic wits ever since then, or maybe just he was too much occupied by subtle tragedy-romance receiving enormous popularity among teenagers.Despite this, he remains one of the few promising film makers in new millennium Japan.

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.

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.