‘Sheep in the Box’ Expands Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Empathy to Humanoid Androids and the Architecture They Inhabit

May 12, 2026 10:45pm PT ‘Sheep in the Box’ Expands Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Empathy to Humanoid Androids and the Architecture They Inhabit

By Blake Simons

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Blake Simons

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Japanese auteur Kore-eda Hirokazu returns to competition at Cannes with “Sheep in the Box,” a thorny yet sensitive meditation on the encroachment of AI on our ability to let go of those who are no longer with us. In the film, Otone (Ayase Haruka) and Kensuke (Yamamoto Daigo) adopt a humanoid android (Kuwaki Rimu) who resembles their late son, Kakeru.

“To think about AI is to think about humanity,” Kore-eda tells Variety. “My earlier film, ‘Air Doll,’ was also about the dynamics between humans and non-humans, but here the non-human is also the dead. I was interested in AI before I began, but I found myself gravitating towards it as I developed the project.”

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