James Z. Feng

In 2002, James shot his first film at the age of 17 in high school with friends and classmates, a gangster feature length film titled Triads V. James decided to focus on acting during college, he studied theater as a minor and did a few theater plays while mainly focusing on film acting. He starred in more than 20 student and independent films during his four years at UC San Diego. Seven days after graduation, James was already on a plane to co-star in a feature film shot in Taishan, China. After finishing the film, James visited Shanghai for vacation and decided he would stay here to pursue acting. For the next two years, James hustled to make a living and to make a name for himself in China doing everything from acting to modeling to event hosting. He would go on to land roles in two big budget films shooting in China: Kung Fu Dunk and Kung Fu Killer. In 2007, he did his first short film titled 600 with a crew of volunteers and a budget of 600 RMB. James was able to finish the film within two weeks in time for the Shanghai Short Film Festival submissions. 600 had a successful premiere at the Shanghai Short Film Festival and took home two awards including Best Actor. 600 went on to the international film circuit and was showcased at over 15 film festivals worldwide. In 2008, armed with a wealth of film-making experience from being on set as an actor and having just finished 600, James decided to moved back to USA to study film. He decided he would not apply to film school and would learn film-making on his own by investing his own money in his own projects. His second film Drowning was finished at the end of 2008, the film had its world premiere at the 2009 DC Independent Film Festival in Washington DC. In 2009, James's started his third film, a feature length documentary on the sport of MMA titled Fight Life. After 3 years of production and re-edits, the film premiered on January 20th, 2012 in San Francisco at the Roxie theater where it had two back-to-back sell out screenings. The film went on to win the Best Documentary award at the United Film Festival later that year. Fight Life was picked up by Double Dutch Media and slated for worldwide release in 2013. In 2013, James moved back to Asia to develop his next project, a feature length narrative film focused on underground hip hop musicians set in China.