Date of Birth
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17-February-1937
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Place of Birth
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Fukui Prefecture
(Japan, Honshu, Chūbu region)
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Nationality
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Japan
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Also know as
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Shun'ya Itô, Ito Shunya, ã„ã¨ã† ã—ã‚…ã‚“ã‚„, 伊藤 俊也
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Profession
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Film director, Screenwriter
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Shunya ItÅ is a Japanese film director famed for starting the Sasori series of 1970s exploitation films starring Meiko Kaji. ItÅ 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.
He won Best Picture 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 humane view of Hideki TÅjÅ on trial at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
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