Published: 09:30 AM, 18 August 2026
Low-budget 'Niu Lai' becomes unlikely China box-office rival to 'The Odyssey’
A rough-edged, low-budget animation has pulled off one of the summer's oddest box-office turns in China, even as Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" and a string of blockbusters battle it out for audiences.
“Niu Lai”, a two-person production with bare-bones character modelling and a storyline critics called abstract, opened in Chinese theatres on Aug 5 to almost no buzz, taking in just 7,169 yuan ($995) over its first nine days, the Global Times reports.
Fewer than 300 people had watched it in that stretch, box-office tracker Maoyan showed, with opening-day earnings sitting at a mere $474, the Chinese state-run tabloid said.
Then, on Aug 14, the film's own dismal numbers went viral.
Online users seized on its rough production values, branding it “the most basic theatrical film” and “worse than AI-generated animation”, with some saying they could barely believe it was a 2026 Chinese release.
Others admitted they simply wanted to witness how bad it could get. Once the mockery took off, cumulative earnings shot past 2.5 million yuan.
The title itself fed the joke, since “Niu Lai” translates loosely to “the bull is coming”, a phrase stock market watchers use to hope for a bull run.
Some quipped that investors were flocking to cinemas chasing that very omen, while others joked Nolan had not bargained for an unlikely box-office rival landing the same day as “The Odyssey”.
Fans piled on further by photoshopping the film's cartoon bull into posters for classic movies, turning "Niu Lai" into a full-blown internet meme.
The film's verified Weibo account responded by acknowledging it "falls short of established industry standards" on visuals and storytelling, but said the team was grateful for the positive attention and open to criticism as a pointer for improvement, the paper said.
Cultural researcher Zhang Peng of Nanjing Normal University told the Global Times the film's rise was driven by curiosity and "social currency" rather than genuine quality, with viewers effectively paying to feel part of a trending joke.
He warned that cinemas rushing to add extra screenings were chasing online noise rather than backing the film on merit.
Zhang pointed to "The Odyssey's" strong turnout as proof that polished content paired with a genuinely distinctive theatrical experience still drives the business, calling "Niu Lai" a cautionary tale rather than a template.
Viral buzz, he said, is no substitute for solid creative work, and content quality remains what keeps the industry going in the long run.
