(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) "Niu Lai", a non-professional animated feature film made by Chinese amateur creator Xin Yumeng and his mother Sun Lifang over a period of five years, is creating a phenomenon-level storm in the Chinese film market.
There are conflicting opinions on how much the film cost to make. In a comment by German radio station RBB Radioeins, it was pointed out that its production cost was estimated to be an extremely low 145 euros (approximately 1,000 yuan); while Western media such as Reuters reported that its production cost was approximately several thousand dollars. But in any case, this is an ultra-low-budget work that is extremely rare in theatrical movies.
According to data from the Chinese box office statistics platform "Maoyan", "Niu Lai" performed extremely poorly at the box office in its first week of release on August 5, earning only about US$1,000 (approximately 7,700 yuan) in revenue, setting a record for theatrical animation this year.
However, since mid-August, criticism and ridicule of the film's "disaster" performance such as rough modeling, stiff movements, and out-of-sync dubbing and pictures began to spread exponentially on social media. Far from destroying the film, these discussions unexpectedly attracted a large number of young viewers with a "novelty-seeking" and "personal appraisal" mentality to flock to the theater.
As of around August 20, the film's cumulative box office has quickly soared to 33.06 million yuan (approximately US$4.92 million). "Maoyan" predicts that the film may even be among the top ten domestic animation box office in China in 2026. In the single-day box office list, this "hand-rubbed" work once followed the Hollywood production "Spider-Man: A New Day" which cost more than 200 million US dollars, and kept pace with Christopher Nolan's new film "The Odyssey".
Dadaist Carnival and Resistance to AI Aesthetics
The sudden popularity of "Niu Lai Lai" quickly aroused strong interest from mainstream German media including Der Spiegel and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The German-language media generally pointed out that this was a carnival of Internet meme and Dadaism ("Beautiful is the worst"), and many words of praise on the Internet were actually highly ironic sociological metaphors.
Euronews analyzed it from a deeper level of cultural psychology. It pointed out that at a time when sophisticated videos generated by algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) are flooding social networks, this film with severe pixelation and extremely poor technology has become the "antidote" for the younger generation to fight against "AI standardized aesthetics."
In an interview with Agence France-Presse (AFP), Caelan Moriarty, an American musician working in China, expressed how much young audiences cherish this sense of non-industrial authenticity. Moriarty told AFP: "I appreciate how bad it is, but you can feel the sincerity injected by the creator, which makes it impossible to hate it." He further pointed out to AFP that AI may only take ten seconds or even faster to produce such a batch of movies, but the creator did not rely on AI, but spent time hand-twisting frame by frame, which is impressive. "It's not perfect. But it's that imperfection that makes it so human... I think that's why it's such a hot trend."
The resurgence of cinema as an 'analog social space'
Film critic Jenni Zylka of the German radio station RBB Radioeins gave an extremely vivid description of the film's "absurd style". She noted that the calves and cows in the film looked like "1970s computer-animated Teletubbies with shoddy skulls."
Zilka wrote in his review that the film is full of extremely crude "2-bit scenery", the lines are slow-paced, and the mouth shapes are completely mismatched. Not only does the film feature a snake that looks like a leather belt, but there is also a strange bird that hovers in the air with a huge flapping of wings and constantly chatters to the protagonist. Most of the dubbing in the film was recorded by the creators, mother and son, in the background, with chaotic computer-generated music gushing out from time to time. In an extremely absurd plot, the cow dies in a way similar to the classic animation "Bambi", but at the end of the film, it is revealed that it was all just a dream.
Nonetheless, Zilka saw in it the unique cohesion of cinema as a “simulated social space.” She pointed out that although the bootleg version of the film has been circulated online, it has not ruined the theater box office. Because "no one is going to want to watch this movie alone at home sober." It forces young audiences to go into theaters in droves to "buy the laughs" or "appraise" them in person. This evolved into a group immersive experience full of liveness that can only be obtained in offline theaters.
Chinese director Remo Zhu expressed highly similar views in an interview with Reuters. He believes that this DIY project touches on a certain rebellious mood of the times among young people: "This is an attitude of 'Don't tell me what to do, what to watch, what to eat - I decide for myself.'" He pointed out: "In a cinema full of strangers, this becomes a truly interactive and immersive group experience."
Comparison of “coarse grains” and market spillover
Pan Wang, associate professor at the University of New South Wales, used a vivid metaphor to explain this cultural rebellious psychology in an interview with AFP. Wang Pan said: "It's a bit like eating fine grains every day, and suddenly trying coarse grains for a change - the contrast itself is refreshing." He added: "The roughness, absurdity and imperfection of "Niu Lai" have become part of its appeal."
In the theater scene, this attraction is extremely concrete. Stella Xing, a student interviewed by AFP in Beijing, said she was attracted to the emoji after seeing it online. She told AFP: "Although there are many flaws, there are too many funny details in it, such as the way the calf walks, which really makes people want to watch it."
According to Reuters' on-site observations, in a Beijing cinema, the "Humanoid Cow with Eyebrows" poster hand-painted by the theater staff formed an extremely strong visual contrast with the exquisite and gorgeous poster of Hollywood director Nolan's new film "The Odyssey" next to it.
Carnival spilling over into the capital market
What’s even more interesting is that this carnival even spilled over into China’s capital market. Since the title of the movie "Niu Lai" is homophonic to "the bull market is coming" in Chinese, a large number of investors regard movie ticket stubs as a "mascot" for financial management. This even once led to the irrational rise of concept stocks with the word "ox". In this regard, Reuters observed that a professional media affiliated with the People's Bank of China (Central Bank) also noticed the above phenomenon and issued an unusual warning. The media clearly pointed out in a recent report: "There is nothing wrong with going to the movies for entertainment, but if you pin your investment hopes on the word 'cow', it is not rational, but just wishful thinking."
At the same time, the peripheral products of "Niu Lai" have also become popular. A Taobao online merchant confirmed to AFP that as the movie became popular, he had begun to urgently produce and sell "Niu Lai" themed keychains and other peripheral products.
Criticism from industry and state media
Unlike the carnival of audiences and capital, there is great embarrassment and worry within the Chinese film industry. Cui Jingxuan, the director of "City", which entered Chinese cinemas at the same time, publicly lamented on Weibo that "Niu Lai" seemed to have "teared off the last fig leaf of Chinese cinema movies." He reluctantly said that many people's "carefully polished" movies are difficult to get theatrical screenings, while an amateur work with rough technology can make a lot of money.
Compiled reports by German-language media also paid attention to the "vigilance mentality" of China's mainstream public opinion. For example, China's state-run media Beijing News published a comment titled ""Box Office 7352 Yuan" is a hot search topic, "Niu Lai" is a "nonsense"?", warning that if theaters continue to lower their screening standards and blindly add works such as "Niu Lai", they may completely lose the trust of the audience. The newspaper called on commercial theater chains to fulfill their "checking obligations" and block out movies that are completely unqualified for public ticket sales and screenings.
key questions
The "Beijing News" review also raised a key question: How did a movie like "Niu Lai" successfully be released in theaters? In this regard, Chinese media "The Paper" learned from the film's distributor that the director is an "acquaintance and friend" of the distributor. When he first saw the finished film, he tried to persuade the director not to do it, but he insisted on it, "I finally made it, so I helped him get it to theaters." In the face of some doubts, the distributor said that the director went through the approval process himself, obtained a release permit, and could go to theaters according to industry operating procedures. "The Paper" quoted a senior Chinese animated film producer as explaining that in fact, the technical review of Chinese films only focuses on the safety and stability of the film's screening. "As long as the content does not violate red lines and the procedures are in compliance, you can get the Dragon Label."
In response to the success of "Niu Lai", a well-known film blogger on Weibo wrote when quoted by Reuters: "I have nothing to say except jealousy that this piece of garbage has made so much money." The blogger added that accepting and pursuing the film has become an "internal joke" among young people, "And I say - let them laugh. There are not many things in life that we can joke about."
Faced with questions about whether it will spark a wave of imitations of low-budget films, Shanghai animation producer Liang Xia gave a sober look at the industry in an interview with Reuters. Liang Xia told Reuters: "This type of incident is an extremely rare event: it is difficult to predict and cannot be deliberately copied." He believes that such counterattacks "are often driven by the wave of public sentiment rather than the content itself. The content may just be the spark that ignites emotions."
