European Premiere | In Competition
Japan, 2025, 126’, Japanese
Directed by: Anshul Chauhan
Screenplay: Anshul Chauhan
Editing: Anshul Chauhan
Cinematography (color): Vinod Vijayasankaran
Producers: Moteki Mina, Michael Carrier
Music: Tyler Mcbeth, Mora Moth
Cast: Kawaguchi Takashi, Nonami Maho, Shirahama Kenzo, Endo Yuya
Date of First Release in Territory: September 22nd, 2025
Gay-themed Japanese films go back decades, from the pioneering 1969 classic
Funeral Parade of Roses, whose intimate depictions of the underground gay scene made it the very definition of scandalous, to the 2022
Egoist, in which two actors with thriving mainstream careers – Suzuki Ryohei and Miyazawa Hio – played gay lovers, explicit sex scenes included, and both critics and fans applauded. (Some might argue that the film should have been cast with gay or bi actors, but ones with name recognition in Japan number approximately zero.)
So Anshul Chauhan’s
Tiger, which premiered in the Vision section of last year’s Busan International Film Festival, where it won the Hylife Vision Award, may not be the first local film to explore the erotic byways of Tokyo gay life, but its dive is impressively deep. Also, previous Chauhan collaborator Kawaguchi Takashi may be straight but plays the title hero, gay masseuse Katagiri Taiga, with a total commitment, blending in seamlessly with the film’s real-life gay settings.
Where the film boldly differs from the genre norm is its approach, which is a mix of the dramatic and the documentary, such as its introduction of NIJI-FSB, an organization that facilitates “friendship marriages” between gay men and lesbian women.
Tiger is also a change from the director’s previous critically acclaimed work, from his experimental first feature
Bad Poetry Tokyo (2018) to the more conventional courtroom drama
December (2022).
Based on stories Chauhan collected while researching the LGBTQ+ scene, the film tracks Taiga as he faces two turning points in his life. No longer as young or in-demand as other masseuses working for his dispatch agency, beginning with pal Benji, a happy-go-lucky type with a packed schedule, Taiga is contemplating a career switch to gay porn. But first he has to pass the audition for his target production company, the real-life Plus Fort.
Meanwhile, he hears from his married sister Minami (Nonami Maho) that their dentist father is in declining health and decides to make a trip to his home in the countryside. There his father (Shirahama Kenzo) tells him that he will give him the family house and Minami the dental clinic – on the condition that Taiga marry and start a family. When she learns of this offer, Minami is upset since she has been taking care of Dad and expects to move into the house with her husband and toddler daughter once he passes.
Taiga, however, has no intention of putting up a straight facade like his local friend and one-time lover Koji (Endo Yuya). But his future in Tokyo is uncertain. With only a high school education and no salable skills, in the straight world, at least, he is determined to become a porn star, but the straight-talking Plus Fort boss is only willing to take him on as a stand-in, while giving him a stage name: Tiger.
The film views Taiga and his world without blinders or barriers, taking us everywhere from gay bathhouses and clubs, where the atmosphere is soaked in eroticism, to the workaday routine of Taiga and other masseurs, where indignities and abuse are part of the job. And if they break the agency rule against unprotected sex with clients, they run the risk of disease.
Tiger also starkly dramatizes the prejudices LGBTQ+ people still face in Japanese society. Taiga has to hide his sexuality from his father, though his sister knows it – and is willing to use it against him. He enjoys happy hours playing with Minami’s daughter Kaede, but this refuge is fragile.
And though the film proposes the unions of convenience initiated by NIJI-FSB as a solution for Taiga, who wants a family of his own, he may not be ready.
Tiger’s portrait of its flawed title hero is unblinkingly true-to-life, not photo-shopped.
Anshul Chauhan
Anshul Chauhan (b. 1986) worked as an animator on Tron: Uprising, Final Fantasy XV, and Kingdom Hearts III. In 2016 Chauhan set up his own production company, Kowatanda Films and directed his debut feature, the 2018 black-and-white drama Bad Poetry Tokyo. He followed up with another drama in the same experimental vein with Kontora (2019), which won the Grand Prix at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. His courtroom drama December (2022) and LGBTQ+–themed Tiger (2025), both premiered at the Busan International Film Festival, with Tiger winning the Hylife Vision Award.
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
2018 – Bad Poetry Tokyo
2019 – Kontora
2022 – December
2025 – Tiger