| Shunya Itō | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 17, 1932 |
| Occupation | Film director |
Shunya Itō (伊藤 俊也 Itō Shun'ya, born February 17, 1932) is a Japanese film director famed for starting the Sasori (Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, etc.) series of 1970s exploitation films based on Toru Shinohara's manga and starring Meiko Kaji. Itō worked for Toei Company for most of his career. He won a Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Citation for his first film, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion, in 1972.[1]
He won Best Picture at the Japanese Academy Awards in 1985 with his film Gray Sunset,[2] a story of a man suffering from Alzheimer's disease. This thus became Japan's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film instead of Akira Kurosawa's Ran, which caused a slight uproar in Western media as many critics thought Ran had a real chance of winning whereas Gray Sunset was not even shortlisted. (Galbraith)
His most recent films are the 1995 anime movie in the Lupin III series: Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus, and the 1998 World War II drama Pride: The Fateful Moment presenting a humane view of Hideki Tōjō on trial at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
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