Shun'ya Ito

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Shun'ya Itō ( Japanese 伊藤 俊 也 , Itō Shun'ya ; born February 17, 1937 ) is a Japanese screenwriter and film director , who is primarily known for his exploitation films from the 1970s.

Life

Shun'ya Itō began his career in the 1960s as an assistant director in the Tōei studios, where, in parallel to his union activities, he assisted well-known directors such as Teruo Ishii in seven films, Masahiro Makino in three and Kinji Fukasaku in two works. Here, like many of his former fellow students, he gained his first experience with various veteran directors. As an activist, due to his longstanding union membership, he had to wait a long time for a chance to finally direct. According to his own statement, he was only able to expand his field of activity and work on scripts - beyond the age of 30 - through the intervention of older, more experienced colleagues.

When the studio finally presented him with an offer for an erotic film ( Pink Eiga ) - as a beginner it was hardly possible for him to realize another genre - he was initially disappointed. It was a commission based on the manga "Sasori" by Tōru Shinohara . The comic book template already served as a template for the then popular prison series Abashiri Bangaichi , which Ito already knew very well from his earlier work. The filmmaker disliked the first version of the script for his debut work Sasori - Scorpion , the first part of the commercially successful Female Prisoner Scorpion , Tōei's own women's prison film series, and he convinced the two young authors to completely revise the existing script, which then happened. According to his ideas, the scenario was rewritten against the wishes of the producer at the time and finally realized in 1972.

The film studio specified the leading actress: Meiko Kaji . The young woman was previously under contract with the competing studio Nikkatsu and changed the production company due to the focus on cheaper sex films. Ito immediately rejected the young actress, according to her own statement, so that there were disagreements and tensions between him and the leading actress during the shooting.

With Kaji he directed the sequels Sasori - Jailhouse 41 (1972) and Sasori - Den of the Beast (1973), before Nikkatsu director Yasuharu Hasebe completed the fourth part Sasori - Grudge Song . Itō's Sasori films, which in addition to existentialist social criticism also contained avant-garde stylistic devices with brightly colored lighting, unusual shots and extreme camera angles, were considered downright revolutionary at the time.

After the Sasori film series, he took a break of almost ten years until he realized another film for the Tōei studios, for which he worked almost his entire life. His comeback film Yūkai hōdō was a great success with audiences and critics, as was his 1985 film Hana ichimomme , which prevailed against Akira Kurosawa's Ran in 1986 and was a Japanese candidate for an Oscar nomination in the " Best Foreign Language Film " category .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1972: Sasori - Scorpion ( Joshū 701-gō: Sasori )
  • 1972: Sasori - Jailhouse 41 ( Joshū sasori: Dai-41 zakkyo-bō )
  • 1973: Sasori - Den of the Beast ( Joshū sasori: Kemono-beya )
  • 1977: Inugami no tatari
  • 1982: Yūkai hōdō
  • 1983: Hakujashō
  • 1985: Hana ichimomme
  • 1988: Hanazono no meikyu
  • 1989: Kaze no matasaburo - Garasu no manto
  • 1995: Lupine III: Farewell to Nostradamus ( Rupin sansei: Kutabare! Nosutoradamusu )
  • 1998: Puraido: Ummei no toki
  • 2006: Eiga kantoku tte nanda!
  • 2010: Rosuto kuraimu: Senkō

literature

  • Stuart Galbraith IV. The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune . Faber & Faber, 2002. ISBN 0-571-19982-8

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d cf. Interview of the “Sasori - Den of the Beast” DVD by the Cologne film distributor Rapid Eye Movies
personal data
SURNAME Itō, Shun'ya
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 伊藤 俊 也 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese screenwriter and film director
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1937