Niu Lai

"If you guys love to watch, then you watch.

As for me, I won't watch." "Not as good as Niu Lai," a Chinese firm that went viral for its low-quality animation.

"The more it's AI-enhanced, the more it loses human touch." Full translation.

How an AI-generated long-form TV series costing nine hundred thousand renminbi per episode drove a thirteen point three billion RMB surge in Mango's market value in five days.

[轻快的片头音乐]

大家好，欢迎回来，Mommy Chinese。今天我们来聊一部最近在中国网上很多人讨论的电影，叫《牛来》。你可能会觉得这个名字很奇怪。牛来是什么意思？为什么一部电影会叫这个名字？更有意思的是，这部电影一开始没有多少人知道，但是后来突然很多人去电影院看。为什么呢？今天我们就来聊一聊。我们先来说一下牛来的故事。这是一部动画片，主要讲一只小牛叫牛来，它和它妈妈的故事。牛来小时候不会走路，后来慢慢长大，和妈妈一起生活，也遇到了一个小豹子。它们一起遇到了危险，还遇到了很多狼。最后牛来和小豹子一起离开，而牛妈妈为了保护牛来，留下来面对狼。这是一个小牛成长和母亲的爱的故事。但是这部电影真正引起大家注意的不是这个故事，而是它的制作。很多人看完以后觉得这部电影做得很难看，动画很丑。慢慢地，很多人在网上吐槽这个电影。吐槽意思是发现一个东西有问题，然后说出来，经常是开玩笑地说。有人吐槽牛来，说，这真的是电影吗？但是最有意思的事情来了。原本没有什么人看牛来，后来看了的人说这个电影很丑，很难看，却有越来越多人知道了牛来。然后有些人开始想，真的有这么不好看吗？我要自己去看看。所以很多人去电影院看牛来，其实原因很简单，他们想看一部烂片到底有多烂。烂片意思就是很糟糕的电影，比如故事不好，画面不好，演员的表演不好，都可以说是烂片。所以有一些网友就觉得很有意思，如果大家都说牛来是一部烂片，那我就去看看它到底有多烂。有一点像看一个奇怪的东西，你明明知道它可能不好看，但是你还是想看看有多奇怪。还有一个原因，我觉得可能更加有意思。有一些网友说，现在电影院里好看的电影越来越少了，如果没有特别想看的电影，那为什么不去看牛来呢？有些人不是因为觉得牛来很好看才买票，而是因为他们觉得其他电影也没有特别好，不想去电影院花钱看。既然不知道看什么，那不如看一部大家都在讨论的牛来。至少看完了牛来，还能和朋友一起吐槽烂片。你会不会为了看看一部烂片到底有多烂，花钱去电影院看一部电影？还是说如果没有好看的电影，你宁愿待在家里也不去电影院？欢迎给我们留言说说你的看法。好了，这就是今天的 Mommy Chinese。Don't forget to check the transcript and translation of this episode on mommychinese.com。谢谢你的收听，那我们下次见吧。谢谢，再见。

[片尾音乐]

So it's two words: N-I-U, niu, and then L-A-I, lai.

Niu lai.

Yeah.

Okay.

There's a movie, it's an animated film.

It's called Niu Lao Lai, Niu Lai, and it, that's translated Here Comes the Cow.

So it's a Chinese film that was, um, just released to the theaters.

It, it was created over five years-

Sometimes timing counts for a lot.

One of the current high performers at the Chinese box office is Niu Lai, The Cow Is Coming, a homemade animation which despite having no publicity, no trailers, and not much in the way of anything to recommend it, has become something of a viral hit.

Joining us now on a line from Harvard is the historian and China expert, Rana Mitter.

Um, Rana, there's a certain amount of underdog hype here.

He's a man called Guo Degang, very well known in, in China, and he made a joke in which he parodied a Chinese communist revolutionary song and has basically had his tour within China canceled as a result.

So that was a sort of direct, not even parody, but at least kind of attempt to play on, uh, communist culture, and he got slapped back.

In contrast, this, um, sort of furore around the Niu Lai film is basically actually saying maybe the kind of message of official culture that things should be aesthetically pure, or that they should be very high quality, and that you should only look at the kind of high culture side of things.

Who cares about that? Let's take this terrible piece of artwork and say that it's the best thing since, um, sliced mantou, which of course are Chinese bread rolls.