A Chinese movie has gone viral for making almost no money following its release, and for its animation that viewers have branded “worse than AI”.
Niu Lai, which translates to Here Comes the Ox, is an animated feature film directed by Xin Yumeng and written by Sun Lifang, who also served as the only crew members and voice actors.
The film released in China on August 5, with next to no marketing. Nine days on, its box office stood at 7,159 yuan (roughly $1,000), with around two hundred people having seen it.
It became viral after the criticism it received #
According to Vocal, the only marketing the film had was a poster, which featured a traditional Chinese ink-wash-style painting, and a brief synopsis that led audiences to think it would be a powerful piece of Chinese cinema.
However, they were surprised to see that the computer-generated animation, and the film as a whole, was much more crude than they had expected. Audiences noted that the character movements were jerky and occasionally clipped inside each other, while the textures were flat and smeared together.
According to Shanghai Daily, some viewers said it was worse than AI-generated clips. Meanwhile, other X user claimed that it still holds more value than something made by AI. One user wrote: “I will respect the most dog a** animation done by humans than the most polished animation done by AI.”
Regardless, it has since gone viral and became a social media phenomenon. Thanks to the coverage it received online, it earned 46,000 yuan on August 15 alone.
Related #
For more on movies, check out our coverage of Peter Jackson having no problem with AI being used to make , or Netflix’s TikTok-style vertical feed.