Niu Lai, translated as The Cow Is Coming in English, which is an 86-minute long animated film about a newborn calf going through a bizarre process of coming of age, has suddenly become viral through the internet after being laughed at for its weird animation and storyline. A relatively unknown Chinese animated movie that did poorly at the box office has surprisingly made itself a trending movie of the season and for reasons that probably even the creators of the film didn’t foresee.
A film made by just two people
The movie, which was released on August 5, did not even earn about 10,000 yuan ($1,480) during the first 10 days. There were reports of making as little as 200 yuan ($30) in a day. It all changed once clips from the film went viral on the internet around August 14. On August 15, the daily box office collection of the movie shot up to 717,000 yuan, causing the cinema owners to boost the showings of the film. By August 17, the Niu Lai movie had accumulated 17.1 million yuan ($2.5 million) box office, ranking among the top 10 highest grossing Chinese animations of 2026, as per ABC News report. On August 18, the film continued its unexpected run at the box office. It recorded a real-time collection of 2.3 million yuan (approx $341,213), briefly moving up to fourth place on China’s domestic box office chart and even overtaking Spider-Man: Brand New Day .
Red Star News reported that Niu Lai has been put together by Director Xin Yu Meng in collaboration with his mother, Sun Lifan, over a period of five years. The simple computer graphics and the stiff movements of the characters and the strange voice acting were easily spotted by the viewers. But, as soon as the clips went viral on several social networking sites, the film saw major jump in the box office collections turning this big disaster into a superhit film in theatres. For those who did not know about the film, started watching this movie in theatres. The film is now competing closely with major Hollywood releases, including Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Tom Holland’s superhero film in terms of ticket sales, as per Manila Bulletin. One user on the platform wrote, “In an era so obsessed with AI, are the creators using a hand-drawn, low-quality art style to express a sense of returning to one’s true self? The possibility is extremely high. After all, both the antique-style poster and the mysterious synopsis hint at the film’s depth, clues left by the director for the audience. What is even more astonishing is the story of how this film came to be. This duo is claimed to have taken care of all aspects of the production from writing to directing, producing, animation, editing, and voicing.
The initial mockery soon became an intrigue for everyone to test if the movie is as weird as said on the internet. others went ahead to call it “worse than AI” and the potential “worst movie of 2026” While some viewers found it similar to a student project.
