Smoking Tigers (Original Score)

Release Date: 2025-06-19

The original score for Korean-American filmmaker So Young Shelly Yo’s debut feature, Smoking Tigers.

The film is set in Los Angeles in the early 2000s, and is a portrait of a lonely Korean-American teen named Hayoung who is taken under the wings of three wealthy students she meets at an elite academic bootcamp. As she falls deeper into their world, Hayoung works harder to hide her insecurities about her problematic family and lower-income background, only to discover the bittersweet pains of adulthood that will forever shape her life.

Coinciding with its digital release of the film, Fujita offers a tranquil first glimpse with ‘Model Home Magic Moment’. “It was maybe the most difficult scene to score because of its emotional dynamics, and also the music had to match every little timing of the actors’ movements,” he adds. “I’m quite proud of how it came out.”

“Growing up, we are told stories of happiness — suburbia, a nuclear family, a two storied house with white picket fences and a pool — but when our lives don’t reflect these picturesque portals, how does it affect us? How do these ideal forms of family and lifestyle poison our minds and pressure us to make choices we wouldn’t otherwise?”, explains director So Young Shelly Yo

The score features Hiroko Murakami who performs the piano on ‘Mama’s Piano’. The full score is out on June 19 2025 on Erased Tapes Music.

All songs composed, recorded, mixed and produced by Masayoshi Fujita except track 07, composed by Masayoshi Fujita and Hiroko Murakami.
Mastering engineers: Satoshi Okamoto, Uwe Haas
Executive Producer: Robert Raths
Cover photograph: Heyjin Jun
Cover design: Robert Raths