I saw this film a couple years ago, I was not sure what it was about going into the theater but coming out I was totally blown away. This movie was simply an incredible experience, you must all be thinking “ an action packed ride?”. No, not quite, it’s more of a slow paced drama in an unexpected context dealing with the lives of some pretty interesting characters. If you are familiar with Shunji Iwai’s work you will know to expect a slow story of life, simple yet full of depth.

The story takes place in the immigrant slums of Japan, where so many live in terrible poverty doing anything possible to save up enough money to return to their home country as rich men. It’s an interesting setting as you see the characters live in hard situations, some are clever and find a way out of misery while other remain in a rotten situation. It was quite interesting seeing these foreigners living in Japan, they banded together into their own community of sorts know as Yentown.

The impoverished setting also gave place to some wonderfully beautiful dark cinematography. Those old building in the slums that look like their falling apart or the trashy alleyways created many beautiful scenes that contained the essence of life, unlike some movie where everything is sterilized clean that it is just not believable. The visual style at times reminded me of those dark HK triad movies. In fact you do have a couple of Chinese gangsters in the movie. One of them is probably one of the best bad guys I’ve ever seen, a guy with his face all painted white with black lines beneath his eyes and a totally cold blooded killing efficiency.

All of the characters in this movie were great, a few main characters that are there for the entire story along with several important secondary characters that come and go during the film. For the most part I found that there was a good development of the characters but it was a very subtle development, as in no major or extreme changes. Another quality about the movie was that you really get attached to the characters, you watch their rise and fall and sincerely hope nothing bad happens.

The central element to this movie was really the characters; everything that happened was their story. If you don’t like the characters you will probably quickly get tired of the story. As mentioned earlier the story is pretty slow paced but to do have a few sequences of action, like this one scene with a Chinese gang against a Japanese gang. It has to be one of the most intense gang fight scene ever, not for the action but the tension and the idea behind it.

In reality it’s hard to say what makes Swallowtail Butterfly a good film, I would have to say that the reason are probably different between most people. The thing that is certain is that this movie has a powerful story that is full of a lot of emotion. It is something that is bound to leave an affect on you either good or bad but you can never deny that this film has substance. If you already seen a movie by Shunji Iwai and enjoyed it I strongly suggest taking a look at this film. If you enjoy slow film with a great characters and a lot of depth then this might interest you.