Shunya Itō (伊藤 俊也, Itō Shun'ya, born February 17, 1937) is a Japanese film director known for starting the Sasori / Female Prisoner Scorpion series of 1970s exploitation films starring Meiko Kaji.
[1] He won Picture of the Year 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) 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.