The look of the film is extremely unusual: the low-contrast, soft-focus seems such an unusual choice for the gritty subject matter. Later pictures like April Story and Hana & Alice have a lot of humor (Lily Chou-chou has a few unusually-placed jokes, in spite of its predominantly grave tone), but none of them build humor with quite the chutzpah Iwaii brings to this movie.
Iwaii's previous film, Picnic, is nowhere near as deft with narrative, and it takes itself way too seriously. Seeing the film in such high quality, I find myself wondering a lot about where the picture came from, exactly. My dad was intrigued, and loved the film-and it's not easy to show him a film he likes. I had forgot ten how constantly, riotously funny the film was, and how funny it remains, even seeing it again. My dad stepped in for part of the screening, and he was hooked by the unusual settings then by the collection of languages then by the eclectic music, the wild vacillation from genre to genre, and by the humor. On the other hand, the massive tonal shifts of the move from sequence to sequence turn out to be one of the film's sources of strength and charm. The narrative doesn't add up in any especially lockstep way-the gangster bits are especially poor parodies of gangster movies past-but the theme of the film is very vibrant, and it's addressed in a unique way. Seeing it now, with an exceptionally improved image, with the translation, all the doubts left me, and I was reminded of why I thought it was such a great film. The performances seemed all over the place, and the distress of my Chinese-speaking friends at the way Chara and Hiroshi Mikami mangle the Chinese-language dialogue began to seem like insurmountable problems with the film.
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But after learning a lot more about film in general and after seeing the movie with proper English subtitles, I found myself growing away from it-the implausibilities throughout the story began to rankle, and the fact that Iwaii never set foot in the imaginative realm of this movie again in subsequent productions made me insecure about liking the film. This picture was one of my favorite film discoveries when I got a VHS of it from a Little Tokyo video store in about 1997 or 98. People are constantly backlit and most of the film seems to be done in soft-focus, with swaths of smoky lighting pouring over the image. The image is extremely low-contrast, with occasional lens-flares and overexposure. On my bigsreen it's clear that there's grain and depth in the image, but the unusual cinematography of the film remains. Compared to my old Panorama DVD of the film, the blu-ray is remarkable. I watched my blu-ray of Swallowtail Butterfly tonight with the English subtitles that are floating out on the web. Yen Town Report Official Shunji Iwai Web Site Off Off Off Review of All About Lily Chou-chou by Grady Hendrix (19 November, 2001) Midnight Eye Review of Fried Dragon Fish by Jasper Sharp (17 April, 2001) The Age Out of the ether by Stephanie Bunbury (July 23, 2002)Īnimefringe The un-famous Shunji Iwai by Dillon Font (February, 2004)Īnimefringe Review of April Story by Dillon Font (March, 2004) Ichikawa Kon monogatari / The Kon Ichikawa Story (2006) Hana to Arisu / Hana and Alice (2004) Home Vision Entertainment (R1) – tbr 10th July, 2007 / Norman's Nose (R2 JP) / Panorama (R3 HK) / enterOne (R3 KR) Jam Films (segment, 2002) Amuse Entertainment (R2 JP) / Universe Laser & Video (R3 HK) Riri Shushu no subete / All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) Home Vision Entertainment (R1) / Optimum Releasing (R2 UK) / Norman's Nose (R2 JP) / Panorama (R3 HK) / EVS (R3 TH) Shigatsu monogatari / April Story (1998) Norman's Nose (R2 JP) / Dawoori Entertainment (R3 KR) Swallowtail (1996) Pony Canyon (R2 JP) / Panorama (R3 HK) / enterOne (R3 KR) Pikunikku / Picnic (1996) Pony Canyon (R2 JP)
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Love Letter (1995) Fuji TV (R2 JP) / Panorama (R3 HK) / SRE Corporation (R3 KR) / Dawoori (R3 KR) / Mangpong (R3 TH) Uchiage hanabi, shita kara Miruka? Yoko kara Miruka? / Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom? (TV, 1993) Norman's Nose (R2 JP)įried Dragon Fish (TV, 1993) Norman's Nose (R2 JP) / Panorama (R3 HK) Ghost Soup (TV, 1992) Norman's Nose (R2 JP)
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