Swallowtail Butterfly (Japanese: スワロウテイル, Hepburn: Suwarōteiru, lit. 'Swallowtail') is a 1996 Japanese crime film written, directed and edited by Shunji Iwai, starring Hiroshi Mikami, pop-singer Chara, and Ayumi Ito.
The film is set in Tokyo at an unspecified point in the near future when the Japanese yen has become the strongest currency in the world. This attracts an influx of immigrants, legal and illegal, to work in the city. The immigrants give the city the nickname Yen Town (円都, en to). The Japanese natives, however, despise the nickname, and in retribution call the immigrants by the homophone Yen Thieves (円盗, en tou), anglicised as "Yentowns" in the film's English subtitles.
This Film provides examples of:
- Bilingual Dialogue: All over the place. Sometimes even trilingual, as the characters speak various combinations of Chinese, English, and Japanese at different levels of fluency.
- Bits of Me Keep Passing Out: The first sign that something is wrong after Ageha shoots up the drugs her crew found.
- Blatant Lies: The women from Ageha’s mother’s brothel who hold an impromptu funeral for her in the coroner’s office all while denying any knowledge of her.
- Bookends: Ageha's mother's corpse being dumped in a field and then having no one claim the body for a funeral, to Fei Hong's body being claimed by Ageha and given a Viking Funeral near those same fields.
- Boom, Headshot!: Ran and Shenmei’s specialty. Mao Fuu has a couple in his intro scene as well.
- Chekhov's Skill: Arrow's boxing lessons to Ageha.
- Cold Sniper: Ran is the most rational and emotionally detached character in the film. Downplayed with Shenmei who is more emotive throughout.
- Counterfeit Cash: The main plot is kicked off when Fei Hong's crew discovers they can trick machines into thinking a 1,000 Yen bill is a 10,000 bill.
- Death Seeker: Rio Ranki shows signs of this. His bravado in front of his enemies' guns may actually be this.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Ageha's one punch knockout of a local punk earns his and his gang's undying loyalty.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Glico, who initially tries to pimp Ageha out, but backs out when she sees the other young prostitutes in the same brothel shooting up drugs. Instead she takes Ageha under her wings and finds better work for her at Aozora.
- Hope Spot: Hong Fei’s from immigration detention because he couldn’t pay to be deported.
- Impairment Shot: After Ageha collapses, we see fast clips of disjointed images of the Opium Street while she is rushed to the doctor with it gradually becoming clearer as the treatment takes effect.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Ran and Shenmei again. They manage to hit a passenger on a moving commuter train from across the street with perfect accuracy.
- Lonely at the Top: Glico’s brief moment of stardom and wealth shows her looking miserable as she is surrounded by people controlling her and doing a job she never truly enjoyed.
- MacGuffin: The cassette tape of 'My Way'. Rio Rannki's hunt to track it down after that fuels the major confrontation near the end of the film.
- Opening Monologue: “Once, when the yen was the most powerful force in the world…”
- Yakuza: The one's who initially steal the tape.
