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 was shot on hand-held cameras using jump cuts and other visual techniques. It covers a wide array of themes and genres, from social realism to coming-of-age to crime. A theme song for the film under Yen Town Band, titled "Swallowtail Butterfly (Ai no Uta)", gained first place on the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart of October 7, 1996. Plot 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 . The Japanese natives, however, despise the nickname, and in retribution call the immigrants by the homophone , anglicised as "Yentowns" in the film's English subtitles.