Viral Chinese animated film by son & mother has heartwarming story behind its box-office success

Chinese animated film goes viral for its poor-quality animation, but becomes an unexpected box-office success

Released in China on 5 Aug, the 2026 Chinese animated film Niu Lai has made headlines for all the wrong (and possibly right) reasons.

The film gained sudden notoriety for its low-quality and crude animation.

However, the ridicule it received turned the film into a viral phenomenon on Chinese social media, to the point that the film has recently broken box office records.

Despite having no publicity, the film is now in conversation with Hollywood blockbusters such as The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Passion project by a son-and-mother team

Niu Lai is an 86-minute Chinese animated film about a newborn calf and a skylark, whose relationship develops over the course of an abstract dream sequence.

Directed by Xin Yumeng and written by Sun Lifang, the animated film is created by a son-and-mother team. Additionally, the duo also voice-acted all the characters in the film.

Prior to making Niu Lai, Xin had worked as an interior designer and had no formal film background.

The 34-year-old director said that the idea first came to him in early 2021. Xin watched a lot of cartoons when he was a child and really loved the art of animation.

“I came up with this idea that runs through the whole story, and it also incorporates my own life experiences,” he said.

Production on the film took over five years, with Xin and Sun refining the characters for three to four months.

Mother had no prior experience in creating a film

At the beginning of the project, Xin admitted that his parents thought it was unrealistic. But Xin regarded it as a passion project, not having high expectations for the final results.

His mother, Sun, took a more hands-on approach in supporting Xin.

Although Sun was an ordinary employee of a state-owned enterprise, she started to learn filmmaking to help her son with the project.

She taught herself screenwriting and voice-acted as some of the characters in the film.

Additionally, she composed the soundtrack and performed the theme song.

While the son-and-mother dynamic provided Xin emotional support, Xin says that the duo had many disagreements during the creative process.

“Because I’m the son and she’s the mother, we had to consider the values, direction, and ideology of the scriptwriting process, including censorship,” Xin said.

No expectations for the film

With the help of a friend, who works as a distributor, Xin was able to make his dreams come through as Niu Lai premiered in 245 theatres on 5 Aug.

The screenings later reduced to four theatres by 14 Aug due to the initial poor reception.

Xin’s friend reportedly told Chinese media that he was advised not to release Niu Lai due to its quality, but persevered for his friend.

Niu Lai had no promotional campaign, trailers or marketing. The only advertisement was a single poster with a traditional ink wash painting.

Some theatres did not even have the official poster, resorting to drawing their own renditions of it.

In its first nine days of release, Niu Lai earned just over 7,000 yuan (S$1,320).

However, no one expected the film to become a massive viral hit among Chinese netizens thereafter.

Film becomes nationwide hit

From 14 to 15 Aug, clips of the film began circulating across Chinese social media platforms such as Rednote.

Discussions of the film quickly turned into a meme in China, driving hordes of film fans to the cinemas to watch it for themselves.

Although the film itself is “so bad”, audiences are captured by the eccentricity of the low-budget production, embracing it as a welcome tonic against artificial intelligence.

Some netizens claimed to have “laughed” and “cried” while watching the film.

Following the mass social media attention, the film has been distributed to theatres across China.

The film is currently among the top ten highest-grossing animated films in China, even becoming one of the highest returns on investment for a Chinese film.

When Xin was told that his film was to be shown across the country, he said he felt “conflicted”.

“There’s no benchmark to determine whether the market will accept your work, because there haven’t been any films like mine before; they were all big-budget commercial films,” he said.

He added: “There’s no need for me to do things like roadshows or anything like that for my film; just releasing it is enough.”

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Featured image adapted from IMDB and 是宝贝弟弟 on Rednote.