Shunya Itō
Shunya Itō is a Japanese film director known for starting the Sasori / Female Prisoner Scorpion series of 1970s exploitation films starring Meiko Kaji. Itō worked for Toei Company for most of his career. In 1972, he won a Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Citation for his first film, Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion.
He won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards in 1985 with his film Gray Sunset, 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.
In 1995, he directed Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus. In 1998, he directed the World War II drama Pride: The Fateful Moment, presenting a sympathetic view of Hideki Tōjō on trial at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, attracting accusations of revisionism.
Filmography
- Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion
- Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
- Female Prisoner Scorpion: Beast Stable
- Inugami no tatari, aka Curse of the Dog God
- To Trap a Kidnapper
- Hakujasho
- Gray Sunset
- Labyrinth Romanesque, aka Labyrinth of Flower Garden
- Misty Kid of Wind: The Glass Cape
- Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus
- Onimaro zanshinken, aka Demon Slayer Sword
- Pride: The Fateful Moment
- What’s a Director?, aka Eiga kantoku tte nanda!
- 300 Million, aka Rosuto kuraimu: Senkô
- Hajimari mo owari mo nai, aka No Beginning, No End
- ''Independence of Japan''