Actor and indepedent creator, newcomer James Moten Black is working to develop American Ronin, an original project that will firstly shoot a conceptual proof trailer to help gain attention from potential investors. Plot details and specifics about the film are pending, though it’s described as a contemporary martial arts piece cosigning his love for classic jidaigeki cinema and anime.
Black is an accomplished martial artist since the age of eleven; He trained in Tang Soo Do under now-Grandmaster Linda Denley (Armor Of God), studied Muay Thai and scored a win in the competitive arena in sparring and forms. He moved to Los Angeles in 2014 to pursue acting, joining the Breakin’ Through Acting Workshop headed by actor and founding instructor Choice Skinner, and eventually picked up on Iaido and Kenjutsu under Skinner’s tutelage, next to learning visual effects compositing.
The two have since flourished in their creative partnership, most prolifically with their most prolific project to date, Darkan Entertainment’s Black Lightning: Tobias’s Revenge, a fan film inspired by the DC Comics superhero, which scored several victores at film festivals in 2017 and 2018. Seperately, Black’s credits also include award-winning horror short, Eerie Anecdotes, and Chinese production, Oh Boy!, as well as Discovery programs The Coroner: I Speak for the Dead and NY Post Investigates.
“As a practitioner of the samurai sword and a huge fan of anime titles like Rurouni Kenshin and Samurai Champloo, and Kurosawa classics, I wanted to write, direct, and star in something of that fashion but with a modern take.” says Black.
The team building process is underway as well with Skinner pairing with Black on American Ronin to serve as director of photography, and Malachi Mutakkabir constructing the action scenes. Black currently appears in upcoming Lazarus director R.L. Scott’s IGTV webseries, Killer Crows, from Sensory Overload Films.