Back when tigers used to smoke, starry-eyed dreamers imagined tantalizing futures that seemed so within reach — until cold harsh truth reared its ugly head. So it goes in So Young Shelly Yo‘s debut feature, “Smoking Tigers,” an incisive excerpt of 2000s Korean-American life in Southern California. Here, sixteen-year old Hayoung (Ji-young Yoo) has to juggle her family and social life in one fateful summer. Between her parents’ failing marriage, new cram school friends, and her own yearning for a stable home, she becomes entangled in an network of lies that becomes increasingly difficult to extricate herself from.
We had the opportunity to speak with So Young Shelly Yo over Zoom, on the occasion of “Smoking Tigers”’ North American theatrical premiere. Over the course of the conversation, we spoke about filming bilingually, working on a first feature, and the gamble that is the American Dream.
This interview has been edited and redacted for clarity.
How did “Smoking Tigers” come to be?
So Young Shelly Yo: The root stems from an autobiographical place, but once I started writing, [“Smoking Tigers”] took a life of its own. The feeling of shame and the desire of wanting to belong – that was very real to me. I grew up going to church, even though my mom is not super religious. A lot of Korean immigrants just end up going to church to find community. During that time, we were always told that divorce is sinful. I grew up in fear that my family was not enough because we were not a full nuclear family.
Were you always in southern California?
I was born in Korea, but we came here when I was one. I spent some time in New York for school but moved back to the outskirts of Los Angeles. My mother lived in Koreatown for some time, so I joined then before I got married myself.
So much of the movie is spoken in Korean, which is rare in Asian American cinema. The only other precedent I can think of is “The Farewell” (Lulu Wang, 2019) but that’s it.
Yes, 70% of the movie is in Korean!
Was working with the language a challenge for you?
When I thought of these specific characters, I could hear them speak Korean in my mind’s eye, just as I heard Korean spoken to me. My sound recordist noted that [my characters] are not speaking Korean-Korean, though; they’re speaking Korean-American, with a level of understanding of the language and culture stunted from the time that they left Korea. I see this in my mother too, when she returns to Korea. The language has changed so much that she feels like an outsider.
I’ve seen that with my own parents, too, when they moved back and forth between the US and Korea.
My dad lost all his English when he moved back to Korea, and my mother never learned proper English because she works in Korean communities. She would always try to teach herself English by playing a movie tape with a Korean translation on the bottom. Every day, she would put on “Cheaper by the Dozen” (Shawn Levy, 2003) My sister and I memorized all the lines. (laughs)
I think this seeped into my desire to become a filmmaker, to understand not just human emotion, but culture and characters and stories.
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Do you feel like you’re searching for yourself in your movies?
I’m always searching for myself. When my parents separated, there were a lot of questions that they never answered for me, so “Smoking Tigers” was a way to investigate or create a fantasy by answering those specific questions for myself. I think they wanted to shield me from certain things, so I have to fill in the gaps. I became a storyteller to find answers.
What did you project timeline look like?
There were seeds for “Smoking Tigers” all throughout film school in 2015, but [the feature] took shape around 2018. Before, my stories were a lot bigger – more genre and expensive. But I wanted to make something really intimate, really small, so I wanted to focus on one character, one family.
So much of “Smoking Tigers” depends on Yoo Ji-young‘s performance. How did you find her?
I wanted to extract the meaning of the feature in a short film, a proof of concept called “Soft Sounds of Peeling Fruit.” I looked for Korean actors, and met [Yoo Ji-young] then. We went a different route for the short film [and didn’t cast her], but for the feature, she had this magnetic energy that felt so right. I had seen her in a play called “Man of God,” where she was so in her role, integral and powerful. She had what it takes to carry a lead performance, with the stamina and understanding of character. She is so sharp and smart that she made my job a lot easier. She always knew the right character to bring for each moment.
Her performance hinges on her ability to code-switch – back and forth between Korean and English, Korean and American cultural norms, between her friends and family.
Fun fact: Lee Ji-young didn’t grow up learning Korean! It’s her third language. In Q&As, she said that the language was one of the big challenges for her, such as Korean intonations and the like. One of the best parts of our collaboration, then, was finding out the purpose of language. For example, Hayoung uses a lot of English with her mom because she doesn’t want to connect with her, and language becomes a wall. With her dad, she comes down to his level to speak Korean because she idolizes him.
The code-switching is especially notable because the film prefaces with her dad’s client noticing that Hayoung is fully bilingual.
Yeah. She can, but she chooses not to in certain situations.
Another interesting aspect of “Smoking Tigers” is that it’s an Asian American film, but it’s not so much about assimilating to whiteness than it is with other Koreans and Korean Americans.
If I brought in other ethnicities, I think that would have complicated the reasons for Hayoung’s struggle. [The divide] is deeper than [skin color or language]. There are questions of personal self-worth, of class, that create societal divisions.
These internal struggles come out prominently in the hagwon [Korean cram school], which seems to be the only other nexus of Korean American life outside of the church, generally speaking.
I spent a lot of time going to hagwons. I found so many of my friends there. But you also start to compare yourself to them – not just in grades, but also houses and neighborhoods that are so different from yours. You can find the entire spectrum of the Korean American community in a hagwon, from the most wealthy to the most poor.
And the house parties…
That happened a lot. We would study hardcore all day for the SATs, and then get a text that says, “House party tonight?” Then everyone – even when they have so much homework to do – somehow sneaks out of their house and goes to the party. They party as hard as they study. (laughs)
Switching gears: in a lot of coming-of-age stories, we are often confronted with a maelstrom of emotions, like loneliness. Here, however, we really get in the weeds with betrayal.
The original script shows [Hayong’s hagwon friend] Rose as a straightforward frenemy. Erin Yoo bought so much warmth to Rose, however. She just poured love. Through her, I wanted to show that Hayoung is not the only one experiencing loneliness; Rose is too. Hayoung is just so blinded by her own weight that she’s unable to see that.
What happens to Rose and Hayoung in an ideal world? Do they make up?
In the last shot of the film, Rose comes out and Hayoung is in the corner, so it’s unresolved. But I never wanted to shed a negative light on female friendship. It’s a hopeful sign that they’re not connected in this moment, and that there’s a chance for them to connect in the future. Being in the same frame shows their distance yet desire to be with one another.
Do they end up going to fancy universities?
In a different life, Hayoung does get into Stanford after all. However, she can’t afford it, so she goes to a more affordable state school.
Rose and Hayoung burn each other too, from being too close. In fact, it seems like Hayoung’s relationships all burn – like a cigarette too close to your skin – from being too much in proximity.
Hayoung is just unable to be honest because of the shame. She’s hiding all the time, so Rose feels betrayed. The problem isn’t on the outside; it’s about how you’re feeling about yourself. If you don’t come to your own power, it’s going to destroy all the relationships around you.
There are some elemental iconography in other parts of the film. Hayoung’s mother is always around water; her father is around fire. He’s more interesting to look at but if you get closer, you’ll get burned, whereas her mother is more soothing. These key themes came to be because of my collaboration with my director of photography, Heyjin Jun.
Is the title, “Smoking Tigers,” related to these elemental properties at all?
I heard once that Koreans have a strong, fierce energy, like a tiger, but in the end, they’re just a wisp of smoke. That’s the journey of a Korean immigrant: they come to America to conquer and be successful and rich, but a large percentage of them are not. They’re still struggling. It’s heroic to make that big leap to come here. It’s something to admire, but it’s also so, so hard.
Everything is a gamble. Coming to America, being a filmmaker, trying to make it in the arts. You just have to do it out of love, to live without regrets.
Including directing your first feature film. Definitely a gamble!
It was stressful, but it was fun and honest. I poured all my energy into it. I taught at a hagwon first, to research for the script and have some income; I also tutored on the side. It felt like a gamble because everyone [I know] is out there, buying houses and starting families. But for me, this movie is my baby. It’s been everything for me over the last two years.
It’s almost like you’re in the position of Hayoung’s mom now.
I’m getting to the age when I’m technically supposed to have children, but it’s a lot of money and energy. I talk about this with other female filmmakers. It’s a big sacrifice for women. You have to literally carry the child, birth it, stay in the hospital for some time… so this is something I would like to potentially investigate in my next film. They say having a baby is the most beautiful thing in the world, but how much do you have to sacrifice by being a mother?
Do you have other projects on the horizon?
A few. One of them has to do with dreams. I want to lean back into the genre-based scripts, like sci-fi and surrealism, and also tell something very intimate. What does it mean to be a woman in today’s modern world, and what are we suppressing in order to fit into how society wants us to be? What do we truly want versus what we’re told to do? It’s an existential crisis.
Maybe it’s all just part of the Saturn return, which brings said quarter-life crisis every 27-30 or so years. (laughs)
Perhaps! Looks like I’ll have a lot more to research. (laughs)
“Smoking Tigers” plays at the Laemmle Glendale starting August 16th and will be available to stream on MAX starting August 23rd.
