Director of 'Niu Lai' Reveals Full Handmade Production with His Mother – Second-hand Computer Burned Out During the Process

The low-budget animated film ‘Niu Lai’ has sparked a “the worse it is, the more popular it gets” phenomenon in China, unexpectedly surpassing 24 million RMB (about 14.42 million MYR) at the box office. This work, dubbed a “family workshop” film, was painstakingly created over five years by just the director, Xin Yumeng, and his mother, Sun Lifang.

Born in 1992, Xin Yumeng originally worked in landscape design, but in 2021 switched industries and renamed his renovation company as a film company. Without outsourcing or outside investment, he took on modeling, rendering, and male voice acting himself—all on second-hand computers; meanwhile, his mother, a retired employee from a state-owned enterprise, self-taught scriptwriting, music composition, and female voice acting from scratch. Responding to criticisms about production bugs and laggy scenes, Xin Yumeng—whose film used no AI at all—frankly stated that when forced to choose between visual quality and storytelling, he “let the story come first.”

Initially, the movie saw dismal box office numbers due to zero publicity, but later went viral thanks to online clips. Although mother and son often had creative disagreements during production, they ultimately complemented each other and completed the film. Xin Yumeng is now preparing a sequel, ‘Yang Gao’, and has expressed he will continue the independent production approach, rejecting outside investment.