One of the hand-drawn posters for Niu Lai.
Photo: Yuyu Chen/Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images
In 2025, the biggest win at the Chinese box office was undoubtedly Ne Zha 2. The animated adventure film became the most successful movie of the year worldwide, raking in a total of $2.27 billion, per Box Office Mojo. That put it at sixth on the ranking of the highest box-office totals in history and made it the highest-grossing non-English-language film of all time. The biggest story at the Chinese box office in 2026 is a little different. Niu Lai, another animated movie, has reportedly made 20,000 times its budget. For comparison, the recent box-office smash Spider-Man: Brand New Day has made about ten times its budget. How is a movie so bad becoming such a sensation? You have to see it to believe it.
Niu Lai, which translates roughly to The Cow Arrives, is the passion project of a mother-son duo. Xin Yumeng, 34, worked on the film over the course of five years with his mother, Sun Lifang. He directed, and they both voiced the entire project. Instead of using the developed AI software to create the animation, the film is incredibly homespun. Using rudimentary 3-D animation tools, the film looks janky, with sharp edges and bad editing.
Niu Lai tells the story of a calf who is learning to walk. After he passes out from overexertion, he dreams that he befriends a young leopard and saves his herd from a pack of wolves. The story is filled with confusing plot holes and the animation is bad, but that’s exactly why it’s been so successful.
When Niu Lai debuted in theaters, it did not immediately make money. In fact, it made just $1,140 in its first ten days of release, per the BBC. Then, its lack of success made the film go viral — people who heard about it online started wanting to see Niu Lai for themselves. It was a classic “so bad it’s good” film, in the style of Tommy Wisseau’s The Room. “Every time a new character comes on, people are constantly laughing at how bad it is,” an ABC News Australia report from China stated. The movie didn’t even have its own poster, so fans and movie theaters have fashioned their own hand-drawn versions.
Since release, Niu Lai has made 45 million yuan at the box office, per the Chinese box-office tracker Maoyan, which is about $6.7 million. That’s pretty impressive for a movie with a budget of between $200 and $500. Its success has made it an even bigger meme on the Chinese TikTok equivalent, Douyin. It’s also Stateside — two screenings of the film in San Francisco sold out, per the San Francisco Chronicle. No New York or Los Angeles screenings have been announced.
Well … yes. It is not officially released in the United States, but there are a multitude of options available at the moment on YouTube. Be warned, they were filmed in movie theaters.
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