The Story of China's Viral "Worst Animation Ever" Just Keeps Getting Weirder
Mocking videos and a mother-son production team helped push the low-budget animated film from under $1,000 to nearly $2 million in 10 days, Maoyan said.
- On Monday, the Chinese animated film "Niu Lai" reached over 14 million yuan at the box office. Initially a flop, the 86-minute film has surged after social media users mocked its crude, low-poly visuals.
- Created by director Xin Yumeng and his mother on a budget of around 20,000, the film gained traction as an anti-AI success story. Supporters embrace its "hand-crafted" approach, viewing crude animation as proof of human effort rather than artificial intelligence.
- Competing against "Spider-Man" and "The Odyssey" at the Chinese box office, the film has forced cinemas to create hand-painted posters. With no professional promotional materials, these makeshift advertisements have become part of the viral phenomenon.
- State-Owned Beijing News warned that cinemas risk "losing the trust" of viewers by screening the film, which critics called "bad in every aspect imaginable." The outlet urged theaters to "act as gatekeepers" and "reject films that are obviously not up to standard."
- Professional platforms like Maoyan have revised the final box office forecast upward to over 89 million yuan. Some analysts speculate about potential subsidy-related grifts, questioning whether the project was ever intended to attract such significant attention.
27 Articles
27 Articles
Niu Lai, a low-budget Chinese film, went viral for her peculiar animation and surprised with her box office success.
The reviews cut him off. He writes a film professional, who, as reported by the Guardian, asked to remain anonymous, ugly in every conceivable aspect, including history, special effects and almost every element that a film should have. Yet in China, the animation film Niu Lai (Here Comes The Cow) challenges the [...] The article is ugly in every aspect, including history and special effects.The incredible case of the animated movie Niu Lai is th…
The 'Worst Animated Movie Ever' Is Somehow Becoming a Box Office Hit
If any lesson can be taken from the extremely, laughably ugly animated film Niu Lai, as it dominates the Chinese box office, blowing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey out of the water, it’s probably that people will always love a viral, memeable disaster just as much, if not more, than a meticulously crafted masterwork. And they […] The post The ‘Worst Animated Movie Ever’ Is Somehow Becoming a Box Office Hit appeared first on VICE.
Niu Lai was produced by two people and with little money, but without artificial intelligence
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