HighLights
  1. Nui Lai is a low-budget Chinese animated movie. 
  2. Nui Lai earned 10,000 yuan ( ₹1.42 lakh approx) at the Chinese box office in the first 10 days.
  3. Nui Lai challenges major Hollywood releases like The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Niu Lai Box Office China: A Chinese animated film that was called the 'worst movie of 2026' is now surprising everyone at the box office. Made on a very small budget, it has suddenly registered strong box office numbers in the country. This allowed the movie to appear alongside big Hollywood titles like The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. What looked like an early failure has now turned into an unexpected box office success.

Niu Lai, which translates to 'The Cow Is Coming,' tells the story of a newborn calf and a skylark whose bond is shown through an abstract dream sequence.

You'll be surprised to know that it made just 7,700 yuan (or around Rs 1.04 lakh) in its first 10 days of release in China. There was no trailer, no pre-release publicity, and no promotional tour. But soon the clips from the animated movie appeared on social media.

 

 

Niu Lai's hideous visuals, stiff characters, terrible voiceover, and complicated plot amused viewers. Many compared it to a below-average school project.

A curious user asked, "My biggest question is how did they get this into theatres in the first place?" Another user said, "This is definitely a shitty work. But in recent years, there have been way too many shitty works pretending to be good ones during promotion, so this kind of pure shitty work ends up feeling refreshingly entertaining by contrast."

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Niu Lai Box Office China

It turned out to be a surprising hit at the box office instead of the expected disaster. Yes, you read that right! Many began buying tickets to discover whether Niu Lai was really as bad as everyone claimed.

Niu Lai only made roughly 10,000 yuan ($1,480) at the box office in the first 10 days following its August 5 premiere in China.

According to Maoyan, a movie-tracking website, the Chinese movie made as little as 200 yuan ($30) at the box office on some days. The number was remarkably low, particularly during the competitive movie season.

However, according to the movie-tracking website, its box office rose to 8.2 million yuan (₹11.65 crore) on Monday with about 300,000 admissions. It has made 17.1 million yuan (or around ₹24.28 crore) at the box office so far.

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The only known promotional material for Niu Lai was a poster with classic ink-wash artwork. However, the animation that awaited viewers inside the theatres was very different from the movie posters.

According to reports, even the distributor acknowledged that he had been told not to release this Chinese movie due to its quality. He proceeded anyway since he was friends with the director.


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