One of China’s current box office hits comes not from Marvel, or Disney, or any ultra-powerful media juggernaut. Instead, it comes from a determined mother-son duo who refused to let something as small as a lack of animation skills get in the way of telling a story they believed in.
The film is called Niu Lai, which translates to “Here Comes the Cow/The Cow Comes,” and centers around a young sheltered cow who finds himself in a vivid dream quest of sorts, wherein he learns how to find courage and resilience that he brings with him into the waking world.
Pretty epic concept. But the animation…not so much. We’re talking skibidi toilet-level graphics. And the reason why the animation is so rough is simple:
Xin Yumeng and his mother Sun Lifan, who created the film, aren’t professional animators. They’re not exactly professionals in any capacity.
As reported by The Independent, Lifan taught herself screenwriting to make the project happen, as well as voicing all the female chargers. Meanwhile, Yumeng (who only had an interior design background) voiced all the male characters, in addition to directing and using second-hand computers to handle the animation, editing, and so on. The entire thing was, essentially, a two-hander.
Per The Independent, during a radio interview for Entrepreneurial Youth Talk, Yumeng shared how the mother-son duo didn’t want polished visuals to take priority over the film’s narrative, saying. “if we focused all our energy on rendering precision, this film would never have been made.”
Yumang and Lifan also didn’t fret over marketing, either. Instead, they released the movie with no trailer, promotional tour, or pre-release publicity of any kind.
Little did they know, the crude animation style (along with the power of internet roasting) was all the marketing they’d need.
While the film initially did quite poorly—only earning the equivalent of around $1,480 in the first 10 days—everything changed after comments flooded in talking about how the movie was so “unbelievably terrible and eye-opening” that it circled back towards being good…not to mention that it was still superior to any AI slop out there.
The little cow that could
Since going viral, Niu Lai has made a total of $2.5 million. And it has become the cultural moment equivalent of Barbenheimer here in the US. Theaters now show hand-drawn movie posters that read: “Come on over if you’re into the bizarre” and “No refunds.” Memes are abundant. People come in cow costumes. The works.
If ever there was a story about “done” being better than “perfect,” this is it. There’s something genuinely lovely about a mother and a son working together to create something they believed in, with the resources they had immediately available.
In that way, they really are embodying the bravery that seems to be the central theme of this bizarre bovine movie. And even though folks might mostly be talking about the animation, they are no doubt equally being affected by that as well.
By the way, if you think you can stand this style of animation for 90 minutes, the entire film is currently available on YouTube. There aren’t any English subtitles, but that honestly just helps add to the delightful absurdity.
