Why Hirokazu Koreeda paired Haruka Ayase and a TV comic in sci-fi drama Sheep in the Box

“Chalk and cheese”, “oil and water” and “Beauty and the Beast” were just some of the baffled reactions circulating among Japanese cinephiles when news broke that auteur Hirokazu Koreeda had cast A-lister Haruka Ayase and television comic Daigo Yamamoto as a couple in his latest sci-fi drama, Sheep in the Box. Watching them enter one of the exclusive terraces of the Palais des Festivals et des Congres in Cannes, where Koreeda’s film debuted at the French resort city’s annual film festival last month, it is easy to understand the online commotion brought about by this curveball match-up. Omnipresent on Japanese magazine covers and advertising billboards, Ayase arrives in a striped, multilayered designer outfit clearly unsuited for the heatwave sweeping across France. This does not concern Yamamoto, who turns up in a snappy T-shirt and trousers. Ayase admits she was surprised when Koreeda, with whom she worked in 2015 for the family drama Our Little Sister, told her who her on-screen husband would be. “Daigo is a comedian,” she says. “And I think the director wanted to put me alongside him, and then…” “In Japan, I think people do find us a very odd pairing,” interjects Yamamoto, who is well known at home for his appearances as one half – the goofy half, no less – of the network television comedy duo Chidori. “It might have something to do with [Koreeda] playing on our differences,” he continues. “But when people actually watch the film, they will realise that we’re not such an odd pairing after all.” Designing grief In the film, Ayase plays Otone, an architect whose speciality lies in modern, minimalist and tech-backed buildings. Her husband, Yamamoto’s Kensuke, is a traditional carpenter who spends his days shaping and cutting wood. The difference in their aesthetic preferences is reflected in their own house, a bright concrete edifice with Otone’s floor-to-ceiling windows, open-plan living spaces and glaringly white walls. For Kensuke, the small traditional wooden tub in the bathroom is the only space he can call his own. The trauma of losing their son in a mysterious accident two years ago has drained their relationship of both joy and fury, their marriage now resembling a cordial coexistence. Captivated by a tech firm’s project of “bringing back the dead” through humanoids, Otone brings home a robot bearing the exact resemblance and personality of their seven-year-old son Kakeru (Rimu Kuwaki). Kensuke is sceptical of the whole enterprise, to the point of dismissing the new Kakeru as a Tamagotchi. Still, his reluctance to confront the palpably depressed Otone leads him to play along with the adoption. He gradually warms to the robot, despite its unnerving tendency to ignore the niceties of Japanese social etiquette. The human element In publicity material released to the press before the screenings in France, Koreeda himself said Sheep in the Box was born out of his discomfort at reading how Chinese companies are offering to revive dead people through artificial intelligence (AI). During our meeting at Cannes, however, Koreeda is much less forthcoming about this issue. Apart from saying that the fictional tech company in his film offers “dodgy” and “trite” services to its grief-stricken customers, the director refuses to be drawn on how AI might affect him as a filmmaker. “I want to direct people who enjoy acting,” says Koreeda after a long pause. Indeed, the acting in Sheep in the Box might itself be the 64-year-old cineaste’s coded critique of AI’s limitations as a filmmaking tool. For all its flaws, the film sails sturdily on, courtesy of the performances of its cast. Among the performers, Kimiko Yo spices up the proceedings as Otone’s straight-speaking mother, while 10-year-old Kuwaki delivers an impressive acting debut as the boy-robot Kakeru. But the beating heart of Sheep in the Box lies in its two lead actors, as Ayase and Yamamoto evoke the ebbs and flows of their characters’ relationship with subtlety and skill. In yet another example of Koreeda’s ability to unearth the unseen potential of underestimated actors, Yamamoto delivers a sensitive, against-type performance as an emotionally stunted man coming slowly out of his shell to reconnect with his wife. When they finally do, they make a warm, convincing couple – a pairing that even the most densely programmed algorithms might not be able to predict. Doing the homework “For my preparations, Koreeda told me there was a Korean film about a woman who lost her son that has similarities [with Sheep in the Box] – he didn’t actually ask me to watch it,” Ayase says. “That means he wanted you to watch it,” Yamamoto quips. “I did watch it in the end,” says Ayase, referring to Shin Dong-seok’s Last Child (2017). “And I studied how to make the little models of houses, the little people out of wire.” Yamamoto had far fewer assignments to do. “I didn’t have any homework,” the actor says. “[Koreeda] didn’t tell me to watch anything or study anything. But when we first met, he did ask me if I like children. And I said, I don’t hate them, but I’m not great with them, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love them. “And I said, ‘Is that OK?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ Now, I think maybe he just thought I was suitable to play a kid’s game.” Reinventing careers Yamamoto’s pivot away from his speciality mirrors Ayase’s a decade ago. Having first made her name with the television series Hotaru no Hikari: It’s Only A Little Light In My Life (2007) and the film Cyborg She (2008), the model-turned-actress found herself typecast in romantic comedies until Koreeda cast her as the prim, stoic and eldest of four sisters in Our Little Sister. Having been nominated for the best actress prize at the Japan Academy Film Prize for her performance, Ayase is just one of many actors who have reinvented themselves through a Koreeda film. Makiko Esumi made her leap from modelling into acting with her turn as a young, grieving widow in Maborosi (1995). Hiroshi Abe managed to leave his pin-up past behind by playing a middle-aged bumbler in Still Walking (2008). Masaharu Fukuyama might still be stuck playing the cocky, caricatured Detective Galileo if not for Koreeda’s Like Father, Like Son (2013). As Yamamoto prepares to embark on a new phase of his career, he is confident he and his fellow actors will still be around for quite some time despite the advance of AI. “I will ask AI how to make people laugh,” he says. “Even if I were to do exactly what it said and keep on doing it, I think at some point people would stop laughing. It’s our experiences in life that give us the edge and make us better and stronger when it comes to making people laugh.” Ayase says: “AI is handy for doing research. But at the same time, it gives you an answer straight away, so you kind of miss out on the process, the struggle before you come to a decision … and that’s where the individuality of humanity lies.” Want more articles like this? Follow SCMP Film on Facebook

Why Hirokazu Koreeda paired Haruka Ayase and a TV comic in sci-fi drama Sheep in the Box

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}A-lister Haruka Ayase and television comic Daigo Yamamoto star as a grieving couple confronting an AI ‘resurrection’ in Sheep in the Box

A-lister Haruka Ayase and television comic Daigo Yamamoto star as a grieving couple confronting an AI ‘resurrection’ in Sheep in the Box