Chinese animated film Niu Lai went from a near-empty theatrical run to an online sensation, while a same-name meme coin on BNB Chain briefly climbed to a market capitalization of $29.06 million, according to BlockTempo.
The film had taken in only RMB 7,169 after nine days in theaters and sold a little more than 200 tickets, setting what the report described as the year’s lowest record for a theatrical animation release. Then the story changed. Clips and commentary about the movie’s rough image quality, awkward storytelling and unusually crude animation began spreading across Chinese social platforms, turning it into a viral curiosity.
A meme coin with the same name spiked on BNB Chain
At nearly the same time, the words “Niu Lai” were minted into a meme coin on BNB Chain. Citing GMGN on-chain data, the report said the token, with a contract beginning 0xbe...7777, was listed on Aug. 13 and started a near-vertical move around 9 p.m. on Aug. 15.
By the time of writing, its market cap had reached $29.06 million, marking a record high, with a 24-hour gain of more than 40x. The article also said the token had surged into the roughly $26 million range in the early hours of Aug. 16 before pulling back to around $20 million later in the morning.
BlockTempo stressed that the token is highly volatile and has no authorization or partnership with the film’s producers, director Xin Yumeng or the production company. It said the coin was purely capitalizing on the film’s name and sound-alike appeal, with no official backing.
The report also pointed to a sharp imbalance between the token’s liquidity and headline valuation. Its liquidity pool stood at only $1 million, while market cap moved above the $26 million level. In the source article’s framing, that leaves both upward squeezes and downward breaks relatively easy to trigger, with a large sell order potentially enough to knock the price down quickly. The article added that it was describing the phenomenon rather than offering investment advice.
A two-person production that took five years
Niu Lai was released in China on Aug. 5, 2026, with a runtime of 86 minutes. The production team consisted of only two people: director Xin Yumeng and screenwriter Sun Lifang, a mother-and-son pair. The report said Xin was born in 1992.
According to the article, Xin handled nearly everything himself, including modeling, rigging, motion adjustment, scene building, lighting and rendering, editing, recording, dubbing and post-production compositing. No outside art work was outsourced, and no outside animation team was hired. His mother served as both writer and voice actor, and also sang the ending song. The film was described as a zero-investment, fully handmade production completed over five years.
Box office reversed after online mockery spread
The film’s first theatrical results were bleak. It opened with 245 screenings on its first day, dropped to 25 the next day, and by Aug. 14 had been reduced to just four screenings across China.
That changed after viewers began circulating the movie as a kind of spectacle. The report said its rough 3D models, stiff movements and absurd plot were treated by internet users as must-see oddities. Among the comments cited were lines such as, “A bad movie is not always worth watching, but if it’s bad enough, you want to see what happened,” and, “Even AI probably couldn’t generate this.”
On Aug. 15, daily box office revenue jumped nearly 100x from the previous day’s RMB 3,900. Daily screenings rose from single digits to more than 1,600, and presale screenings for Aug. 16 exceeded 7,000. At one point, six related topics appeared simultaneously in Weibo’s top 20 trending list, including “Niu Lai box office surges 1000x,” “Niu Lai Dragon Seal,” and “Niu Lai bad money drives out good.”
Questions over approval and the producer’s background
As the film spread online, some viewers questioned how visuals of that quality could have passed China’s “Dragon Seal,” the permit required for public film release in mainland China. The article said industry explanations were less dramatic: the permit reviews whether content is illegal or violates public order and accepted norms, not image quality, animation smoothness or artistic standards.
The production company, Dalian Jingyuan Culture Film and Television Media Co., Ltd., was described as having both registered capital and paid-in capital of RMB 100,000. The company was formerly Dalian Jingyuan Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd., founded in 2016 as an interior and exterior renovation business, and only changed its name and entered the film and television sector in July 2021. Its annual report showed only one insured employee.
According to Chinese media cited in the report, Niu Lai had passed RMB 2.2 million in cumulative box office revenue by early Sunday morning.