Red Ronin
Brendan Preston & Joe Douglas, Laser Wolf Films
Language: English
Based On: Original Screenplay
Project Type: TV Fiction (Scripted)
Genre: Fantasy
Stage of Development: Pre Development
Estimated Length (minutes): 25 x 8
Director: Douglas Joe
Director Bio:
Douglas Joe (DJ) is a White River First Nations member from Beaver Creek, Yukon and is amongst the Territory's most promising emerging filmmakers. He is a co-founder of the recently launched production company Laser Wolf Films Inc. which was twice awarded the Available Film Festival "Made in The North Award" for DJ's short films "Datrin" and "The Fast & The Fu(rc)ious". "Datrin" went on to win the "Made in The Yukon Award" at the Dawson City International Short Film Festival, screen at ImagineNative, LA Skins, Tromso, and was showcased on CBC Short Film Face-Off. He has won the Yukon 48 Hr Film Competition Audience Choice Award multiple times for his films BFF: Big Foot Friend (2019) and SMASH! (2020). DJ recently was completed the ImagineNative Story Editor program and attended the Arctic Indigenous Screenwriting Workshop hosted by the International Sami Film Institute in Norway. In addition to directing award winning short films and servicing corporate clients, DJ teaches Indigenous youth filmmaking skills throughout the Yukon, inspiring the next generation of Indigenous storytellers.
Total Budget: TBD
Percent Confirmed: 0%
Currency: $ CAD
List names of confirmed partners:
Yukon Media
What is this project seeking?
Co-production Partner
Logline:
In an alternate-history, three hundred years after the Japanese discovered the New World, First Nations and Japanese cultures have fused together. A young First Nations shapeshifter Ronin cuts a path of revenge towards those that oppress his people and killed his loved ones.
Synopsis:
In an alternate history where Japan discovered the New World in the 1400s, First Nations and Japanese cultures have fused, but the oppressive Emperor has outlawed all Native American folklore creatures. Born in a remote northern village, a baby boy shapeshifts into a fox upon delivery. To save him from debating village elders, a woman smuggles him away to a mysterious swordsman far from civilization. Over the years, a deep bond forms as the master trains the youth in the disciplined ways of the Samurai. Now a teenager, the boy’s world shatters when imperial bandits led by a Tengu—a supernatural swordsman—brutally execute his master for harboring an enemy of the state. Watching frozen with fear alongside his snowy white weasel sidekick, the young warrior resolves to hunt down those responsible, transforming his grief into a quest for vengeance as the "Red Ronin.”
After months of rigorous training to master his swordsmanship and shapeshifting abilities, Red Ronin sets out to cut a path toward vengeance. Along the treacherous roads, they recruit a trickster raven to his cause. The trio soon rescues a family enslaved by human-eating Onis, and as they continuously protect the oppressed from imperial tyrants, Red Ronin’s legend spreads across the land. Even the elite Straw Hat mercenaries sent by the Shogun fail to stop them, falling in battle as the heroes advance toward the Shogun's stronghold in the valley below.
Confronting the murderous Tengu that slayed his master, Red Ronin sustains critical, near-fatal injuries. Remembering his master’s advice to prioritize survival over rigid honour, he capitalizes on a vital distraction when Raven attacks the Tengu's eyes, allowing Red Ronin to leap to his feet and decapitate his foe. Red Ronin carries the severed head into a heavily guarded longhouse, where the audience discovers that the series' elder narrator is actually the Shogun himself. The Shogun defends the violent suppression of First Nations culture as a necessity for imperial control. An intense battle erupts. Defeated, the Shogun in his last words, warns that the true enemy is the Emperor himself. Red Ronin delivers a final, fatal blow.
The first season closes in the high northern alpine. A lone figure running through the snow-capped mountains pulls down her mask, revealing a young Japanese woman who draws her sword swiftly as she senses an approaching presence.
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