Swallowtail (film)

Swallowtail, also known as Swallowtail Butterfly Suwarteiru, is a 1996 Japanese crime film directed by Shunji Iwai, starring Hiroshi Mikami, popsinger Chara, and Ayumi Ito.

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 Yen Town , ien taun? . The Japanese natives, however, despise the nickname, and in retribution call the immigrants by the homophone Yen Thieves , ien taun? , anglicised as Yentowns in the films English subtitles. The story centers around a sixteenyearold girl Ito whose mother has just died. The girl is passed on from person to person until she is taken in by a Chinese Yentown prostitute named Glico Chara, who names her Ageha Japanese for swallowtail. Under Glicos care, Ageha starts a new life. ........

Source: Wikipedia