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A low-budget Chinese animated movie has gone viral after making only RM4,400 at the box office
Viewers online criticised the film and called its visuals "worse than AI", creating an unexpected buzz on social media.
The movie, titled Niu Lai, which means Here Comes the Ox, opened in Chinese cinemas on 5 August with almost no marketing.
Director Xin Yumeng and writer Sun Lifang made the entire film as a two-person team, serving as the only crew members and voice actors.
Nine days after its release, official numbers showed the movie had made just 7,159 yuan (RM4,440), with only about 200 people buying tickets during that period.
The movie's only marketing was a poster
According to reports from Shanghai Daily, the poster featured a traditional Chinese ink-wash painting alongside a short synopsis.
This led viewers to expect a high-quality Chinese film. Instead, audiences were shocked by the film's low-quality computer-generated visuals.
Viewers pointed out jerky character movements, models clipping into each other, and flat textures.
Social media users quickly began sharing clips of the movie online
While some critics called the animation worse than basic AI-generated clips, others praised the team for not using artificial intelligence.
On social platform X, one user wrote that they respected human effort over polished AI art, even if the result looked poor.
The widespread online criticism ended up helping the movie at the box office
Driven by curiosity and social media memes, ticket sales jumped sharply after the movie went viral.
On 15 August alone, the film made 46,000 yuan (RM28,500).
Watch part of the movie here:
