(Note: Niu Lai will be screening in Singapore from 1 Sep)
How does a movie go from almost nobody watching it to more than RMB50 million at the box office?
That is the extraordinary story of Niu Lai (《牛来》).
Released on 5 August 2026, the crudely animated movie earned only RMB3,420 on its opening day and about RMB7,169 over its first nine days. By 14 August, it was close to disappearing from cinemas.
Then something strange happened.
People started mocking it, talking about it, creating memes around it, and most importantly, buying tickets to experience it for themselves.
By 29 August, Niu Lai had crossed RMB50 million, with around 1.8 million admissions. Recent reporting says the box office has continued to rise, with forecasts around RMB60–64 million.
How could something criticised for being so crude become so valuable?
I call this The Niu Lai Effects.
1. The Imperfection Effect
We have been taught that better quality creates better results.
Niu Lai challenges that assumption.
Its crude animation became part of its attraction. People wanted to see for themselves just how unusual it was.
There is an important human truth here:
Perfection impresses us; imperfection can involve us.
When everything is polished, we become spectators. But when something is obviously imperfect, we notice the human beings behind it. We laugh. We comment. We debate. We share.
This becomes even more significant in the AI era.
As AI makes polished content increasingly abundant, authenticity and genuine human imperfection may actually become more valuable.
AI can produce perfection.
But perfection alone doesn't necessarily produce connection.
2. The Meaning Effect
People don't just buy products. They buy stories and meaning.
Think about what many people were really buying when they purchased a Niu Lai ticket. Were they buying sophisticated animation? Obviously not.
They were buying the ability to say:
“I watched it myself.”
They wanted to understand the phenomenon, participate in the joke and experience the story everyone else was discussing.
The product was the movie.
But the meaning surrounding the movie became part of the product.
This applies to almost every business. Customers don't merely buy what we make. They buy what it means to them.
3. The Connection Effect
Human beings want to belong. Once Niu Lai became a social phenomenon, watching it was no longer an individual act.
People laughed together. They created memes. They shared reviews. They told their friends. They participated in an ongoing conversation.
The producers created the movie.
But the audience created the phenomenon.
This is an important distinction.
The greatest value of a product may not always reside inside the product itself. Sometimes value emerges from the connections and community surrounding it.
That's why I believe: Perfection gets attention. Humanity creates connection.
4. The Invisible Value Effect
Look at Niu Lai purely from the perspective of traditional resources and you might struggle to explain its success.
But look at its intangible assets, and the picture changes.
Its unusual story. The mother-and-son creative journey. The courage to put an extremely unconventional production into cinemas.
- Authenticity.
- Curiosity.
- Social participation.
- Belonging.
- Earned publicity.
Yet they helped generate tens of millions of RMB in box-office revenue.
That gives us a powerful business lesson:
Not everything valuable appears on the balance sheet.
Human beings can give enormous value to something that initially had very little perceived value.
We don't merely discover value.
Sometimes, we create it.
5. The Sustainability Effect
But there is a dangerous lesson we should not take from Niu Lai:
“Quality doesn't matter.” It does.
Nor should businesses conclude: “Let's create something terrible. Maybe it will go viral!”
The Niu Lai phenomenon was unusual precisely because it was unusual.
Novelty can generate attention. Curiosity can generate sales. Virality can generate extraordinary short-term momentum.
But: Virality is not the same as sustainable competitive advantage.
You cannot build a long-term strategy on novelty alone.
Humanity and imperfection can attract attention. Substance and quality sustain value.
And here lies a subtle lesson for business leaders, strategists and boards.
When something suddenly becomes enormously successful, don't merely ask:
“How much money did we make?”
Ask:
Why did it work?
Can it be repeated?
What could destroy this value?
And how can we make the value last?
That is where strategy quietly meets good governance.
The Real Niu Lai Effect
So don't copy Niu Lai. Understand Niu Lai.
Its biggest lesson is not that a crude movie can make RMB50 million.
Its bigger lesson is what human beings can do to value.
- We can transform imperfection into attention.
- Attention into participation.
- Participation into connection.
- Connection into meaning.
- And meaning into economic value.
But the final challenge is always the hardest:
Can we make that value last?
That, to me, is The Niu Lai Effect:
Imperfection → Meaning → Connection → Value → Sustainability
AI will continue to become better at creating perfect outputs.
But perhaps our competitive advantage in the AI era is not becoming more perfect than machines. It is becoming more human.
AI can create perfection. Humans create meaning.
And wise leaders turn meaning into sustainable value.
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