Suwarôteiru (1996)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Shunji Iwai

Writer:

Shunji Iwai (writer)

Release Date:

14 September 1996 (Japan)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

This is the story of Yentowns in Yentown.

Plot:

After a young girl's mother dies, she is cared for by Glico, a brassy hooker, who gives the girl the name "Ageha" (Butterfly)...

Plot Keywords:

Butterfly | Blood | Female Singer | Tokyo Japan | False Money

Awards:

4 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Hiroshi Mikami	...	Feihong
Chara	...	Glico
Ayumi Ito	...	Ageha
Yôsuke Eguchi	...	Ryou Ryanki
Andy Hui Chi-On	...	Maofuu
Atsuro Watabe	...	Ran
Tomoko Yamaguchi	...	Shenmei
Nene Otsuka	...	Reiko (as Nene Ohtsuka)
Kaori Momoi	...	Suzukino
Yoriko Douguchi	...	Hoshino (as Yoriko Doguchi)
Mickey Curtis	...	Doctor
Tetsu Watanabe	...	Yakuza boss
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tadanobu Asano	...	Customer in club
Ken Enomoto	...	Voice work
Kent Frick
Kaori Fujii	...	Yuriko
Akio Jô
Sumie Kamogawa
Toshiyuki Kitami
Kenji Kohashi	...	Hoan
Bryan Burton Lewis
Shiek Mahmud-Bey	...	Arrow
Kae Minami
Ken Mitsuishi
Ryûshi Mizukami
Chris Peppler
Rolly		(as Rolly Teranishi)
Toshiya Sakai
Sansei Shiomi
Keiichi Suzuki
Tomorowo Taguchi
Siro Takehatsu		(as Shiro Takehatsu)
Hua Rong Weng
Hajime Yamazaki

Also Known As:

Swallowtail (Japan: English title)
Swallowtail & Butterfly (Hong Kong: English title)

Runtime:

Germany:146 min | Hong Kong:148 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese | English | Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

South Korea:18 | Germany:16 | Japan:R | Finland:K-16 | Hong Kong:IIB

Company:

Rockwell Eyes

a post-modern adult fairytale

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.