How a low-budget fever dream sparked a Chinese box office revolt

BEIJING: A crudely animated, homemade movie about a baby cow has become China's most unlikely box-office smash, generating merchandise and memes and a national conversation about the joyful rejection of slick marketing and artificial intelligence by a younger generation.
Made on a shoestring budget and with hand-drawn posters and a reported cost in the thousands of dollars, 'The Bull Comes,' or 'Niu Lai' in Chinese, grossed the equivalent of more than $4 million as of Thursday.
In China's daily box-office rankings, it placed immediately behind 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day,' ⁠a Marvel Studios sequel that reportedly cost some $225 million to produce.
'Niu Lai,' which tells the story of a newborn calf, ⁠his mother and a leopard cub, flopped in its first week, grossing just over $1,000, according to local media reports.
Then, with a boost from social and local media, the movie's wonky animation, awkward storytelling and discussion of its unlikely creators - an amateur animator and his supportive mother - made the movie a viral sensation.
At a recent packed ‌screening in Beijing, bursts of laughter rang out before the movie started.
'I ​can't believe the theatre is full!' ⁠one audience member shouted, triggering cheers and laughter from the crowd.
'Other than envying how much money this ​piece of junk has made, I have no ‌complaints,' said a popular movie blogger on Weibo, a social media platform. The embrace of the movie has become a kind of inside joke for the young, the blogger added.
'And I say - let them ​laugh. There aren't that many things left that we can joke about.' 'DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO'
The DIY project tapped into a kind of rebellious mood of the moment, said Remo Zhu, a Chinese director.
'It's a mood of ... don't tell me what to do, to watch or eat - I'll decide that for myself,' he said.
'In a packed theatre full of strangers, it becomes a genuinely interactive, immersive communal experience.'
The movie tells the story ‌of a frail and exhausted newborn calf who struggles to stand up. It is a tale of friendship, courage and loss as the ​herd faces danger on its journey to find greener pastures. Spoiler: It also may - or may not - be a dream.
The dialogue is slow. ​Action sequences ‌are ⁠clunky. The animation is heavily pixelated.
'It's not even a movie,' said one reviewer on Weibo. 'To call it bad is an insult to bad movies.'
Movie or not, it has become a cultural touchstone and sparked a frenzy of people trying to cash in on its unlikely appeal. There ​are Niu Lai toys, Niu Lai-masked robots, social media memes and cosplays.
Companies with the word 'bull' in ⁠their names also ​saw an increase in their share prices on Monday, drawing an unusual warning from China's central bank against meme stock investing.
'Going to the movies for a bit of fun is harmless enough, but ... pinning one's hopes on the word 'bull' is not rationality - it is wishful thinking,' a journal run by the People's Bank of China said on Tuesday.
Aspiring animators hoping to repeat the low-budget flick's success might also be out of ​luck.
'These are usually low-probability events: hard to predict and impossible to replicate deliberately,' said Liang Xia, an animation producer based ​in Shanghai.
'More often, they are driven by a swell of public emotion rather than the content itself. The content may simply serve as the spark that ignites.'