Hong Kong DVD edition

Glico! Glico the Chinese Immigrant! Glico the Hooker! Glico the Singer!

The Ridiculously talented and soulful japanese singer Chara is unforgettable in this Shunji Iwai miracle of a film as a chinese immigrant living in the
guest-worker slum - Yentown. From the times when the japanese economy was in red-hot boom and the country was the richest in the world
and guest-workers and ethnic japanese from all over the world was flocking to Japan to fulfill their dreams.

Chara, the singer/songwriter with that unique voice, she's one of my big musical favourites gifted with a voice and a presence you won't forget,
after listening to her and seing her in her many interesting music videos, you're Hooked. She's still going strong and recording new cool songs after
a quarter of a century in the music business. Chara's born 1968 and was married to japanese actor legend Tadanobu Asano between 1995-2009.
She's absolutely outstanding in this film and a very young Ayumi Ito's great too.

The music from the film was to become a japanese beloved Classic and was written and performed by The Yentown Band (Chara, Takashi
Kobayashi and Shunji Iwai) and the title song was Chara's first No.1 Hit in the charts. The film was an enormous success and a social phenomenon
in Japan, everyone talked about it and Chara become for a while, Huge.

Iwai's film is long, 148 minutes, with a mix of drama, action, and if not visual fireworks at least with a lot of style, great music and with a pro-multi-
ethnic statement against japanese xenophobia. After my first viewing of it felt maybe a bit too long and disjointed and i watched it on a chinese
VCD with poor picture quality, BUT, it made a big impression as i couldn't stop thinking about it and i soon had to watch it again.
Since, i've seen it on this Hong Kong Panorama DVD edition and on a japanese DVD and i would love too see it on a Blu-ray. I'm unsure about
if such a release exist, maybe in Japan but then there's a very small chance there will be english subs.

Note 2018-11-10: Yep, there are beautiful Blu-ray's in Japan of this film and of the masterpiece All About Lily Chou Chou - and - NO SUBS

Suwaroteiru was a sensation in Japan in 1996 but is almost unknown in the west. This beautiful gem was the first Shunji Iwai film i saw, but i guess
most people in Europe/USA found it after seeing his even greater All About Lily Chou-Chou.

The film's about the struggling people in Yentown and there's a lot of characters in it but mostly the film's about The Butterfly, the japanese teenage
girl Ageha (young Ayumi Itoh). An orphan growing up in Yentown and nearly exploited in prostitution but resqued by the kind-hearted hooker
from Shanghai, Glico (Chara) that takes her under her wings. Glico's performing for the Yentowners and she and her boyfriend's dreaming about
starting a music bar and maybe a record contract. They need money, a lot of money, and one day they find something belonging to a gangster, a
bill/money-printing prototype and they're rich. For a while. The film's crime element kicks in and a lotta gangsters searching for the prototype.

The scene when Glico and the band's performing My Way is unforgettable, and also to hear the the white/gaijin but still japanese musicians
complaining that they feel lost somewhere in between due to their ability to speak perfect japanese but not a word english.
A Truly Great Film, this is, and i rank this Second along with Picnic after my favourite Iwai film, the Masterpiece All About Lily Chou-Chou.

This DVD: anamorphic widescreen, 148 min, 5.1 japanese and english with english subs, trailer and TV spot, making of the Butterfly scene
without dialogue, a nice promotion video of Chara and the Yentown Band performing the beautiful title song

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