Chinese animated film 'Niu Lai' becomes massive box office success
'Niu Lai', an animated feature film created by landscape architect Xin Yumeng and his mother Sun Lifang, has achieved unexpected success despite its humble origins and initial ridicule
A 34-year-old landscape architect, Xin Yumeng, and his mother, Sun Lifang, a state-owned company’s employee, started a passion project related to filmmaking around five years ago. Neither had any former qualifications or experience related to filmmaking. They taught themselves everything they
A 34-year-old landscape architect, Xin Yumeng, and his mother, Sun Lifang, a state-owned company’s employee, started a passion project related to filmmaking around five years ago. Neither had any former qualifications or experience related to filmmaking. They taught themselves everything they
A 34-year-old landscape architect, Xin Yumeng, and his mother, Sun Lifang, a state-owned company’s employee, started a passion project related to filmmaking around five years ago. Neither had any former qualifications or experience related to filmmaking. They taught themselves everything they
A 34-year-old landscape architect, Xin Yumeng, and his mother, Sun Lifang, a state-owned company’s employee, started a passion project related to filmmaking around five years ago. Neither had any former qualifications or experience related to filmmaking. They taught themselves everything they needed to know about making a feature film, from animation to voice acting, and spent years working on what has now become Niu Lai. Xin's mother wrote the screenplay as well as the film's theme song, while the two put together the entire 86-minute animated feature for just around $1,000.
Niu Lai, whose title translates to “Come Here, Cow”, follows the story of a newborn calf named Niu Lai and his journey of learning about friendship, responsibility, trust, and sacrifice. He always had his mother by his side. The odyssey ultimately turns out to be a dream, with the film ending on a happy note as Niu Lai's mother introduces him to his father.
The massive success of this film followed a path far from direct. Niu Lai initially struggled to find an audience as it was released in China on select screens without any major marketing campaign. In its first 10 days, it earned around 7000 yuan, and the number of theatres gradually decreased due to low interest.
Social media then came in as a messiah. Screenshots and clips from the film began circulating on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, where users mocked its crude, awkward animation. However, the online ridicule generated curiosity. People began buying tickets simply to see the strangely animated film for themselves, turning the trolling into an unexpected form of free publicity.
Niu Lai soon became a sensation at the box office with ticket sales surging dramatically. This success is an extraordinary feat for a production made by two people with a very low budget.
The central appeal of the film seems to be its handmade, imperfect quality, which is very distinctly anti-AI. What began as a tiny passion project and was initially ridiculed for how it looked has now become a massive success, proving that sometimes, sincerity and an unlikely story behind a film can be just as powerful as the film itself.