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Initially derided by audiences for its poor quality, Niu Lai<\/em> \u2013 a home-made, micro-budget animated feature film \u2013 has become a cultural sensation in China, one that is being belatedly championed for its wholesome messaging and lo-fi aesthetics.<\/p>\n Written and directed by first-time animator Xin Yumeng and his 60-year-old mother, Sun Lifang, Niu Lai<\/em> tells the story of the eponymous young ox calf, who cannot walk. After befriending a skylark, the timid calf slips into a dream, where he stands up on his hind legs and embarks on a formative journey.<\/p>\n In the dream, Niu Lai encounters a snake, a brave leopard protector and a pack of ferocious wolves. As he and his mother travel with their herd across a hostile wilderness, the calf learns to fend for himself, discovering the importance of family and friendship before waking from his dream and taking his first courageous steps into a larger, enlightened world.<\/p>\n Chinese film Niu Lai is so bad it became a box office smash<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Xin, who is based in Dalian in China\u2019s Liaoning province, created Niu Lai<\/em> over five years using second-hand computer equipment bought online to animate a story penned by his mother. The pair provided the voices for all the characters and even composed and performed the film\u2019s theme song.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Initially derided by audiences for its poor quality, Niu Lai \u2013 a home-made, micro-budget animated feature film \u2013 has become a cultural sensation in China,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[4525,107,5134,1900,97,2778,9094,28823,28824,2121],"class_list":["post-79111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-bad","tag-chinese","tag-drive","tag-film","tag-good","tag-lai","tag-lore","tag-mulholland","tag-niu","tag-special","wpcat-33-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Since premiering in cinemas on August 5, the unlikely commercial hit<\/span> has taken more than 45 million yuan (US$6.7 million) at the box office and inspired a stream of memes online \u2013 as well as a wide range of unlicensed merchandise \u2013 in a grass-roots phenomenon that nobody could have predicted.<\/div>\n\n\n
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