An adorable little Japanese boy plays with his parents at the playground, plants a tree in their front yard and snuggles in bed reading The Little Prince. All appears sweet and natural until bedtime, when instead of slipping beneath the covers, he takes a seat on his charging station and powers down, a small button on the back of his night emitting an eerie blue glow.
So begins the first official trailer (see it below) for Japanese arthouse star Hirokazu Kore-eda‘s latest feature, Sheep in the Box. The film premiered in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival — where Kore-eda won the Palme d’Or for Shoplifters in 2018 — and it will open in New York and Los Angeles on July 24, before rolling out nationwide over the weeks that follow.
Koreeda’s 17th feature unfolds in a Japan a half-step into the future, where drones deliver everything, the cars are all electric and generative AI has reached into the most intimate corners of family life. Architect Otone (Haruka Ayase) and her carpenter husband Kensuke (comedian turned actor Daigo) are wracked with grief over the death of their young son when they come upon a new robotics company whose services target families in their sad predicament. Using the photos, videos and other digital traces of a lost love one, the company creates AI-powered humanoid replicas of the deceased, offering families a replacement and continuation of sorts. The story takes flight when the android creation of their beloved son arrives in a box at Otone and Kensuke’s doorstep in the Tokyo suburbs.
