The film-related portion of Chinese trivia nights will never be the same after this weekend, and itâs all because of a film called Niu Lai (âThe Ox Comesâ). The film has raked in almost 15 million yuan ($2.25m) since its release on August 5. This is impressive, but not as impressive as the fact that, according to reports from Chinese outlets, its opening day grossed only 342 yuan ($50), and only 236 people saw the film in its first nine days of releaseâa genuinely remarkable figure in a country of 1.4 billion people. In other words, the film has gone from being a historic box office bomb to something of a phenomenonâand itâs all because itâs spectacularly bad.

Chinese film site Mao Yan lists Niu Lai as being written, animated, and voiced entirely by two people, Xin Yumeng and Sun Lifang; according to The Paper, the former handled âall aspects of the work, including modeling, animation, editing, production, and even voice acting,â while the latter wrote the script and also provided voice acting. A machine-translation of the report says production âwas conducted without the support of a professional production team, outsourced processes or rendering teams.â

There are conflicting reports about the degree to which the film was promoted on its release. Some commentators credit the filmâs poster, an undeniably lovely piece of ink-wash art, for luring curious cinema-goers. The BBC, however, is reporting that â[Niu Lai] does not even have a proper promotional poster, [so] cinema staff have resorted to drawing their own posters to entice audiences to watch,â accompanying the report with a picture of a hand-drawn poster as proof.

Poster or no poster, it seems that while initial viewers were few in number, they were so dumbfounded by what they saw that they took to the internet to post stills and TikTok videos. These clips led to more people going to see Niu Lai for themselves, and those people posted more videosâand suddenly, everyone wanted to see it for themselves. Audiences seemed to appreciate its outsider-y charm, and the fact that whatever its merits, the film feels undeniably humanâlargely because even AI slop doesnât look quite this bad. On Western social media, that sentiment has been picked up by the masses and exploded.

So far, so heartwarmingâexcept that some reports from China suggest that the film is now being removed from cinemas. The BBC’s report quotes state-owned outlet Beijing News as, um, suggesting that theaters âact as gatekeepers for the audience,â and that they should âclearly reject films that are obviously not up to standard instead of letting films like Niu Lai run rampant.” At least one report suggests that Xin Yumeng himself has pulled the film, âacknowledging that all opinions will be carefully listened to,â and promising to âcontinue to strive for improvement in future works.â

The film "Niu Lai" became a huge hit. Since the cinema had no promotional posters for "Niu Lai," they had to hand-paint promotional posters for it.#niulai #çæ¥ pic.twitter.com/qZ7JVIt0QE

— Record GBA (@RecordGBA) August 17, 2026

If the film was pulled for being embarrassingly bad, as some are speculating, then the decision has come too late, because the horseâor the ox, I guessâhas very much bolted, and the full film appeared on YouTube overnight. There are no English subtitles, so I canât vouch for the quality of the writing, but the animation is⦠really something. Itâs like a fever dream rendered inside an early 2000s game engine. The plot summary sounds similarly psychedelic: Mao Yan’s summary explains, “The newborn calf carried the lark, which had just flown in from the desert, into its dream. In the dream, the lark witnessed the calf gradually growing into a brave warrior who dared to take responsibility and face life and death under the influence of multiple forces.”

So, um, whatâs going on here? Some writers have speculated that the whole thing is less a piece of charmingly hokey amateur art and more a bit of quiet grifting that was never meant to attract any attention, let alone the level of coverage itâs garnered over the last couple of days. The level of ineptitude involved, along with the fact that the company behind Niu Lai was until recently registered as a building contractor, led to theories that the film was created to secure governmental film subsidies.

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— lidang ç«å ï¼å人åæ¿/å¦CS/ä¹°SP500/纳100/OpenAI/Anthrop第ä¸äººï¼ (@lidangzzz) August 15, 2026

If thatâs the case, then it was presumably meant to sink without a trace, and the fact that itâs blown up into an international phenomenon is both hilarious and disastrous for the scam. To be fair, not all reports are suggesting that the whole thing is a grift gone wrong: the Paper maintains that the filmâs creation âstemmed from the long-term personal persistence of grassroots creators and the low-cost attempt of a small company to test the film and television industry.â

So the whole thing is either a giant, unexpected success or a Producers-esque disasterâbut which is it? Who can say? As Lou Reed once sang: “It’s either the best or it’s the worst, and since I don’t have to choose, I guess I won’t.” Either way, it seems that Xin Yumengâs filmmaking ambitions aren’t satiated: according to this report, âAfter the filmâs success, the director has begun to make the next big movie: Sheep Gao.â