“Sheep in the Box”: Koreeda’s AI Fable About Bringing Back the Dead | Nippon.com
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“Sheep in the Box”: Koreeda’s AI Fable About Bringing Back the Dead
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“Sheep in the Box”: Koreeda’s AI Fable About Bringing Back the Dead
Cinema<br>Society
Jun 28, 2026
Koreeda Hirokazu’s latest film—the 2026 Sheep in the Box, which appeared in the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival—tells the story of a couple who take into their home a humanoid robot designed as a replica of their dead son.
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A Robot Resurrection
Koreeda Hirokazu got the idea for his latest work Sheep in the Box, about a dead son’s return as a humanoid robot, after he saw an article reporting on a popular Chinese business that creates AI versions of people who have passed away. However, the heart of this film is not so much about AI technology or its ethical questions, but how people react to the return of a loved one, “resurrected” by cutting-edge technology.
Can the couple accept a robot as their son? (© 2026 Fuji Television/Gaga/Tōhō/Aoi Pro)
Ayase Haruka and Yamamoto Daigo, who goes by his given name, play Otone, an architect, and her husband Kensuke, the head of a small home construction firm. Two years ago, their seven-year-old son Kakeru passed away, and they still feel his absence.
One day, an invitation arrives offering free rental of the latest model of humanoid robot to bereaved family members. Stunned by the sophistication of the “product” at an information session held by the company, the couple decide to welcome the robot Kakeru, customized with the dead boy’s data, into their home.
Daigo and Ayase Haruka play the central couple. (© 2026 Fuji Television/Gaga/Tōhō/Aoi Pro)
From the start, the two have different attitudes to the new “Kakeru.” Otone is eager to accept the humanoid, but Kensuke was uncomfortable with the cultlike atmosphere of the information session. While Otone shows her simple joy, Kensuke coldly dismisses the robot as just something like a robotic vacuum. Even when “Kakeru” addresses him as “Dad,” Kensuke rejects him.
Coping with Loss
Otone spends the whole day by the side of the robot, and as he cannot eat, she says she will not take her meals either. As she adjusts her life to fall in step with the humanoid, it feels like she is voluntarily giving up her time as a living being.
Meanwhile, Kensuke keeps telling himself that this Kakeru is only a machine. However, he finds that he laughs despite himself, and is moved, when the boy repeats the names of stations memorized on a train line, as he remembers his son doing the same thing.
Daigo is a popular comedian making his first appearance in a lead role. (© 2026 Fuji Television/Gaga/Tōhō/Aoi Pro)
Rather than a conflict over whether or not to accept their son as re-created in robotic form, through the couple Koreeda depicts different attitudes to mourning and coming to terms with loss.
Kensuke cannot accept the new Kakeru because he remains true to the reality that his son cannot return. As a father he continues to search for answers to questions such as why his son died and who was at fault. By contrast, Otone cannot accept her son’s absence, and this is why she tries to return to the lost past with the robot boy.
The arrival of “Kakeru” brings changes to the couple’s relationship. (© 2026 Fuji Television/Gaga/Tōhō/Aoi Pro)
Since his 1995 debut Maborosi, Koreeda has regularly taken ways of confronting loss as a major theme. In films like After Life (1998), Still Walking (2008), and Our Little Sister (2015), he depicts the influence of the absent dead on those left behind. Sheep in the Box is part of this tradition.
Empty Inside
The film’s title is a reference to The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–44). The robot Kakeru is like the prince, who appears suddenly before the story’s narrator, at the same time that he calls to mind the “sheep in the box” that the book’s narrator draws for him.
Otone reads The Little Prince to “Kakeru.” (© 2026 Fuji Television/Gaga/Tōhō/Aoi Pro)
At first, the prince asks the narrator to draw a sheep, but rejects a number of his attempts. Then, the narrator draws a box and tells the prince that the animal is inside. Finally, the prince is satisfied, “seeing” the sheep that he had wanted.
The robot boy is similar in that nobody can see inside him. He is simultaneously a ghost, the embodiment of his parents’ wishes, and a newly arrived child, learning about the world. Through his growing interest in the workers using planes to shave wood at his father’s workplace and his mother’s architecture job, as well as encounters with trees and nature, he gradually strays from the memories of the human Kakeru.
As the film progresses,...