Swallowtail Butterfly

In the near future the yen is worth so much that immigrants pour into Japan from everywhere and a shantytown called Yen Town grows on the edge of the city. A girl who has lost her mother lands there with a woman named Glico and is given the name Ageha. The group discovers a way to print money from a cassette found on a dead man and soon builds a club and a band. Shunji Iwai shot it in a mixture of Japanese, English and Chinese. The story is scattered and too long, but in its images and energy it occupies a place of its own in nineties Japanese cinema. Chara both plays Glico and sings the songs. Who it is for: viewers who like nineties Japanese independents and stories of immigrant identity. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a tidy narrative.