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A low-budget Chinese animated film derided online for its crude visuals has become one of the country's most unexpected box-office successes this summer, rivaling ticket sales of Hollywood and homegrown blockbusters alike.
Niu Lai, whose title translates to "The Cow is Coming," is an 86-minute animation following a newborn calf and a skylark through an abstract dream sequence. It was released on Aug. 5 without a trailer, promotional tour or pre-release publicity.
The film reportedly earned just 7,700 yuan ($1,140) in its first 10 days, with fewer than 300 tickets sold nationwide, according to reports cited in international media.
Its total gross has since climbed past 14.9 million yuan ($2.1 million), placing it among the top-performing animated films in China this year, according to movie-tracking platform Mao Yan.
The turnaround came after online commentary mocking the film's quality turned it into a meme, drawing curious audiences into theaters.
Reviewers on the Chinese platform Douban framed the film's crude, handmade style as a departure from the polished, AI-assisted animation increasingly common in the industry, unlike slicker recent hits such as "Ne Zha 2."
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Niu Lai now sits alongside far bigger releases in daily box-office rankings, including Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," which earned 192 million yuan in its first three days in China.
That opening placed "The Odyssey" second to the domestic film "Once Upon a Time in the Middle East," about a Chinese chef opening a restaurant amid regional conflict, which took in 477.9 million yuan ($70.7 million) over its opening weekend.
The film was made over five years by two people, reportedly a mother-and-son team: Xin Yumeng and Sun Lifang. Its distributor said in comments to Chinese media that he had been advised against releasing the film because of its quality, but proceeded due to a personal connection to the director.
An unnamed film industry professional described the movie as flawed "in every aspect imaginable, including the story, special effects and almost every element that a movie is expected to have," adding that this was "exactly what attracted audience curiosity." Some commentators have said the film's popularity has come at the expense of higher-quality productions in the industry.
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