During Japan’s bubble economy of the late 1980s and early 1990s, immigration surged in response to a severe labor shortage. Japanese filmmakers took notice and made a spate of films about these new, mostly Chinese immigrants. This era culminated in Shunji Iwai’s “Swallowtail Butterfly” (1996), which became the most celebrated and best remembered of the lot and is now being re-released in a restored 4K version.
Based on an original script by Iwai, the film is not a true-story social drama like Nobuhiko Obayashi’s “Beijing Watermelon” (1989) or a black-comic shocker like Katsuhiro Otomo’s “World Apartment Horror” (1991). Instead, it is a dystopian fantasy-slash-pop-musical set in a near-future Tokyo where immigrants have flocked to find their fortunes. They call their new home Yentown since their sole reason for being there is to accumulate yen.
Meanwhile, the locals mockingly call the immigrants themselves “Yentowns,” a point of potential confusion that a dulcet-voiced female narrator clarifies in English at the film’s start. Though played mainly by Japanese actors, the immigrant characters speak a mix of English, Japanese and Chinese — sometimes in the same sentence. This reflects a reality that films here usually elide by having their nonnative characters emote in fluent Japanese.
Also, as the Japanese government tightens rules for immigrants and far-right politicians spout xenophobic rhetoric, “Swallowtail Butterfly” has become freshly relevant. The dire situation of its “Yentowns” looks more possible. Not that the film’s immigrants are pillars of virtue.
Dwelling in a ramshackle encampment called “Blue Sky,” constructed on a wasteland, they work as gangsters, prostitutes, scam artists, scrap pickers and anything else that adds to their yen stash. Framed by Iwai as romantic outlaws who are more spiritually vital and emotionally honest than the calculating and cold-hearted Japanese around them, they nonetheless live up to certain negative stereotypes. At its center is an orphaned teenager (Ayumi Ito) who is drifting into her dead mother’s profession — prostitution — when a Shanghainese sex worker, Glico (the single-named Chara), saves her from exploiters, dubs her “Ageha” (Butterfly) and informally adopts her as a younger sister.
Doe-eyed but wary, Ageha becomes the film’s observant eye in the storm, seeing much and saying little. Its energy source, however, is Glico, a free-spirited type who took her name from a brand of Japanese candy. A fellow Chinese, the smooth-talking hustler Fei Hong (Hiroshi Mikami), sees yen notes in her singing talent and sexy charisma.
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