A low-budget, homemade animated film has suddenly become a box office hit in mainland China, which analysts said has reflected the public’s aversion to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over film and propaganda.
“Niu Lai,” released on Aug. 5, was initially mocked for its poor production quality and grossed a mere 7,169 yuan ($1,067) in its first nine days in cinemas nationwide. However, a clip of the movie went viral and sparked the Chinese public’s curiosity, drawing audiences to theaters and ultimately sparking a nationwide conversation about the rejection of state-backed, slickly marketed “mainstream” films and artificial intelligence.
As of Aug. 21, 2026, “Niu Lai” had grossed over 30 million yuan ($4.46 million) at the box office since its release, and is projected to total 135 million yuan by Chinese film industry data platform Maoyan.
In an age when AI can generate big movie scenes with one click, this 86-minute film was handmade by a mother and son independently over five years. The son, Xin Yumeng, who had no previous experience in film production, is the director, producer, modeler, editor, and dubber. The mother, Sun Lifang, is responsible for screenwriting and other dubbing. Even the ending song was sung by Sun Lifang herself.
“Niu Lai” tells the story of the friendship between a young calf named Niu Lai and a leopard, Bao La. Within a dream, a skylark witnesses the calf bravely facing danger and ultimately maturing into a warrior. The story concludes with the revelation that it was all just a dream.
“Niu Lai” features a complete narrative rich in metaphor, Hong Kong writer and current affairs commentator Fung Hei-kin said in a Facebook post on Aug. 19.
“What surprised me most was the incorporation of allusions to Western literature—most notably the character of the skylark, which runs through the entire film and guides the protagonist’s growth,” he wrote. “Derived from the masterpiece ‘To a Skylark’ by the English Romantic poet Shelley, the skylark represents a transcendence of all earthly sorrows, symbolizing the soaring of the soul and the spirit of freedom.”
A robot with the head of Niu Lai is displayed at the 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing on Aug. 19, 2026. Tingshu Wang/Reuters
Chen Pokong, a U.S.-based senior China analyst and political commentator, told The Epoch Times that the hype surrounding “Niu Lai” was entirely driven by netizens and reflects underlying social sentiment in mainland China.
“In this country and era, the prevailing discourse is dominated by grand narratives and political correctness—themes that are omnipresent; for instance, renowned director Feng Xiaogang’s film ‘Zhua Te Wu’ [‘I Know Who You Are’] that is about a CCP police officer catching a spy and has official backing.”
State-Backed Spy Catching Production
“I Know Who You Are” is a big production that cost about 300 million yuan ($44.63 million). Its total box office ultimately settled at around 130 million yuan ($19.34 million) since its release in June, despite heavy promotion by state-controlled media.
Since the Chinese communist regime implemented its new anti-espionage law in 2023, the definition of espionage activities has been expanded, and all of Chinese society has been required to watch and report suspected spies. Against public aversion to the new laws, the failure of Feng’s state-backed spy drama is not surprising, according to current affairs commentators.
Li Muyang, host of the talk show “Muyang Focus” on YouTube, said in June on his program that the Chinese regime’s Ministry of State Security is “catching spies every day” and expanding to unprecedented scale, so Chinese people living in that kind of environment have already had enough of “catching spies.”
“I Know Who You Are” depicts a CCP police officer who spends decades—day in and day out—shadowing a single individual, and it turns this obsessive, pathological form of “maintaining stability” of the Chinese regime into a subject for cinematic glorification, noted overseas Chinese political commentator Shi Tao, a host of the “Today’s Click” talk show.
“In reality, if such a deranged police officer were to tail an ordinary citizen every day simply because of a single remark the citizen made, that citizen would undoubtedly be driven to the brink of insanity by the torment,” Shi said on his show.
By contrast, “Niu Lai” received no official backing, Chen noted. “Instead, it became a vehicle for the collective emotional catharsis of Chinese society.”
A man uses his phone to photograph a hand-drawn poster for “Niu Lai” at a Beijing cinema on Aug. 20, 2026. Tingshu Wang/Reuters
“The film is unrelated to grand narratives or politics but has actually sparked the interest of the public, who have grown weary of ‘political correctness’ and are collectively shifting toward things that are more social and secular in nature,” Chen said. “This is a manifestation of an anti-political sentiment: The more you push a message, the less interested people become, triggering a contrarian reaction.”
Although the CCP authorities have not directly commented on the success of “Niu Lai,” the state-affiliated Beijing News published a critical commentary on Aug. 15, condemning the film’s poor quality and calling on the cinema industry “to take a firm stand and shut out films that clearly fall short of theatrical release standards, rather than allowing reckless productions like ‘Niu Lai’ to go unchecked.”
Chen said that while there has been no official public statement, authorities will likely investigate behind the scenes how the film passed censorship and take steps to prevent such movies from being released in the future.
“An absence of politics can itself be a form of politics, and the lack of political risk can be a risk of a different kind. The CCP authorities might well pursue a Soviet-style investigation and hold someone accountable,” he warned.
How this kind of DIY project came to be embraced by the Chinese public and became a cultural phenomenon comes as a shock to the CCP, as the party panics over anything not under its direct control, Chen said. “Anything unofficial risks being taken down; this reveals the CCP’s political ideology.”
Tang Bing and Gu Xiaohua contributed to this report.
