From Plan 9 from Outer Space to Troll 2, sometimes a movie can win acclaim purely though being terrible. That seems to be what's happening with the animation Niu Lai, which is currently taking on The Odyssey and Spider Man: Brand New Day at the Chinese box office.
Initially a flop, the movie has seen a surge in sales after early viewers uploaded videos to social media mocking its crude low-poly animation and apparently nonsensical plot.
Some are now billing the movie as an anti-AI success story after it emerged that it was created entirely by a mother and son team. Meanwhile, the story's taken a strange turn.
A newly released animated film called “Niu Lai” (牛来) is going viral for all the wrong reasons in China.People are calling the visuals “disaster-level” , the entire production team was basically just two people: the director and the screenwriter. After 9 days in theaters, the… pic.twitter.com/l7RM9ZER67August 15, 2026
Those bloggers who mocked #牛来（niu lai） may never have expected that their mockery would turn out to be a free advertisement for the film's success. After 2 days of fermentation, as of August 16, the box office of #牛来 had soared from less than $1000 to nearly $880,000 in ten… pic.twitter.com/Ep3b1MgZnOAugust 16, 2026
Niu Lai translates as something along the lines of The Cow is Coming. It appears to be about a newborn calf and a skylark who develop a relationship over the course of an abstract dream told in 86-minutes of low-poly animation that looks like a late '90s video game.
The film was directed by Xin Yumeng, while his mother performed a final song. The studio behind it, Dalian Jingyuan Culture Film and Television Media, was previously an interior design firm, and the production budget is said to have been around ¥20,000–¥30,000.
Niu Lai appears to have received almost no publicity before its release. With no promo materials, some cinemas have been making their own equally hand-crafted posters to advertise the film now it's taken off (a bit like that hand-drawn Spider-Man poster, but it's more understandable that the distributor overlooked the posters).
As of early this morning (Monday), Niu Lai has already raked in nearly 10 million yuan at the box office. Professional platforms like Maoyan even revised their final total forecast upward to over 89 million yuan. And here’s the best part—since many cinemas didn’t receive official… pic.twitter.com/EjvdBJo7s3August 17, 2026
The film "Niu Lai" became a huge hit. Since the cinema had no promotional posters for "Niu Lai," they had to hand-paint promotional posters for it.#niulai #牛来 pic.twitter.com/qZ7JVIt0QEAugust 17, 2026
A new meme is rising...FAST(I didn't make any of those, just repost) pic.twitter.com/sLDHmTwnDNAugust 15, 2026
After grossing just 7,705 yuan ($1,140) in its first 10 days, the movie's now made over 14 million yuan ($2 million), according to tracking site Maoyan. Alas, it seems not everyone is happy about that.
A comment piece in state-owned Beijing News cited by the BBC has warned that the movie has "lowered the bar" for audience expectations and that cinemas risk "losing the trust" of viewers if they "lower their standard" by screening Niu Lai. It called on cinemas to "act as gatekeepers" and "reject films that are obviously not up to standard".
Niu Lai’s distributor has been quoted in Chinese media as saying he received advice not to release the movie but went ahead because the director was a friend, while other reports claim that Dalian has now withdrawn the movie. There has been some speculation about whether there some sort of grift going on around subsidies and that the movie was perhaps not intended to get so much attention.
成本3万块钱的史诗级烂片《牛来》，现场搞笑程度已经远远超过沈腾的《龙餐馆》 pic.twitter.com/9HT7ty76tGAugust 15, 2026
According to one comment in Chinese press, Niu Lai is “bad in every aspect imaginable, including the story, special effects and almost every element that a movie is expected to have”.
On social media, some are welcoming the movie's "hand-crafted" approach as proof that no AI was used and suggesting that people are turning out to see it to support human art. I'm dubious about any such ideological motive. Viewers might prefer human-made slop over slop of the AI kind, but far from being a vindication of human art, I'm afraid Niu Lai might represent the opposite. People will watch anything if it's bad enough.
