Kore-eda Hirokazu Cut Ties With His AI Script Assistant: 'I'd Like to Stand on the Human Side'

Kore-eda Hirokazu fed the screenplay of his Cannes debut "Sheep in the Box" to a generative AI chatbot, went back and forth with it several times, then cut it loose after deciding that notes from a machine with no personal history of cinema were of no use to him.

The Japanese director, who is receiving the Cinema Honorary Award at the Singapore International Film Festival, nicknamed the chatbot "Chat-kun". He told Variety that he consulted it because of the film's subject matter, which sits squarely in AI territory.

What is 'Sheep in the Box' about?

Set in the near future, the film follows a couple whose 7-year-old son died two years earlier. They take in a humanoid robot built from his data. Ayase Haruka plays Otone, an architect who throws herself into caring for the robot. Comedian Yamamoto Daigo, in his first lead role, plays her husband Kensuke, who insists it is only a machine.

Why did Kore-eda ditch his AI collaborator?

"It praised me a lot," Kore-eda told Variety. "Lots of praise, and then something like, 'However, if you fleshed out the protagonist's mother a little more, it would be a better film.' What it said was correct. But it only ever says correct things. And I wondered what it was that made this so boring."

He pointed to the action films where a train-roof fight arrives exactly on schedule. "Situations all start to look alike: 'They'll go into a tunnel here,'" he said. "There are lots of films now that make you think there's some computer serving as the model."

His conclusion: the chatbot may hold more film data than any ordinary viewer, but it has no film that changed its life. It lacks even the formative experience of getting hooked on something trashy before slowly learning what makes a movie good.

"However few films a person has seen, however skewed their taste, the opinion of someone who has a film that changed their life will lead to more interesting work in the end," Kore-eda said. "After a few rounds I became convinced of that, so I ended our relationship there."

He did not use AI on the finished film. He rejects the framing of asking what humans "should" do in filmmaking: robots may one day outrun people, yet the Olympic 100 meter races will still be held and audiences will still be moved.

"That's not because we should. It's because it's fun," he said. "In the same way, the act of making things is fun. I'd like to stand on the human side. So I intend to keep AI out of the process as much as possible."

What else is screening in Singapore?

The festival is also showing "Look Back", Kore-eda's live-action adaptation of Fujimoto Tatsuki's 2021 one-shot manga, which competed in Venice. Deguchi Natsuki plays Fujino, an outgoing student who draws manga for her school newspaper; Makita Aju plays Kyomoto, a reclusive classmate who idolises her work. Their friendship carries into adulthood and ends in grief.

Kore-eda first read the manga during the COVID-19 pandemic, in a year when his filmmaking had come to a halt. "In the end, I suppose it came down to: 'I can't quit now,'" he said.

About half of the producers and actors who helped him keep working over the years have since died. He feels them watching him the way Fujino feels watched by Kyomoto. "Realizing that was probably the big discovery for me. It's never pressure. It's encouragement, and it makes me want to do things properly, to make something properly," he said.

Of the two films he premiered this year at Cannes and Venice, he said: "If there's a common point, I'd say it's how we face the dead."

What does this change for Japanese cinema?

Not enough, by Kore-eda's account. Young Japanese directors are drawing international attention, yet filmmakers such as Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Fukada Koji often raise money more easily in France than at home. "That's the Japanese market. It's really difficult. It's a challenge for me too," he said.

He estimates anime accounts for roughly 70% of Japan's total box office, despite far more live-action films being made. Independent arthouse cinemas, Japan's "mini-theaters", have been closing one after another; the culture survives mainly in Tokyo and other big cities.

"Filmmakers up to the generation of Hamaguchi and Fukada grew up watching films in mini-theaters," Kore-eda said. "When those disappear, how will the next filmmakers develop?"

Asked about the biggest change across the three decades since his debut feature "Maborosi", his answer was characteristically spare: "Well, I suppose it's realizing that it's okay to be free."