‘Swallowtail Butterfly’ still flutters with dangerous energy

The mononymous Chara stars as a Shanghainese sex worker chasing dreams of riches in Shunji Iwai’s “Swallowtail Butterfly.” | © “SWALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY” PRODUCTION COMMITTEE

Sep 4, 2026

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).

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