Shunya Ito
![Shunya Ito](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/h632/qI0nsBsQHmaLeuBB3feyE3m1bPj.jpg)
Known For: Directing
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: February 17, 1937 (87 years old)
Place of Birth: Fukui, Fukui Prefecture, Japan
Director and screenwriter, Shunya Itō is a Japanese film director known for starting the Sasori / Female Prisoner Scorpion series of 1970s exploitation films starring Meiko Kaji. 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) The above information is sourced from the Shunya Itō Wikipedia page.