The newly released poster for *Niu Lai 2* has drawn wide attention. Few could have imagined the low-budget animated film that once barely broke even would get a sequel.
A new poster for *The Ox Is Coming 2* was recently released, drawing a lot of attention. Few would have imagined that the low-budget animated film, which nearly went bankrupt back then, would actually make it to the point of releasing a sequel.
Around 2020, Sun Lifang and her son Xin Yumeng—who had just started college at the time—pooled their meager savings of a few hundred thousand yuan, gathered a few close friends to form a small team, and threw themselves headfirst into animation production.With virtually no budget, the team couldn’t afford expensive motion-capture equipment. All modeling and animation had to be done manually, frame by frame, by just a handful of people. When the finished product was released, the character models were rough, and the animations were choppy and stiff—it drew a barrage of criticism as soon as it went live.In the first ten days of its release, the nationwide box office total barely reached 7,700 yuan—not even enough to cover the team members’ lunch expenses.
At the time, the entire industry was skeptical about the film; no one thought it would make it past its first week in theaters, and many were just waiting to see the mother and son—who had scraped together the money to make the animated film—end up losing their entire investment.
Yet this film, though rough around the edges in many ways, possesses a unique, traditional Chinese ink-wash aesthetic. The story avoids contrived plot twists for the sake of shock value, and every aspect of it exudes genuine sincerity.Audiences who saw it spontaneously shared recommendations on social media, and theaters proactively increased screenings for this film, which had no marketing budget. Word of mouth gradually turned positive, and box office receipts rose steadily from an initial few thousand yuan, eventually reaching over 60 million yuan. The production company ultimately received 19.83 million yuan from the revenue split,leaving the mother and son with nearly 10 million yuan in earnings. Even a curator from the Toronto International Film Festival reached out to them, stating that this film deserves to be seen by audiences worldwide.
This was never some stroke of luck; it was entirely the result of the mother and son working tirelessly together. After the series was released, there was no flashy marketing, nor did they pay to trend on social media or inflate their metrics—it all relied solely on the quality of the content itself. They managed to turn what others saw as a losing hand into the best possible outcome.
The newly released poster for *The Ox Returns 2* features meticulously crafted visual details—free of flashy embellishments—and retains the same down-to-earth dedication to content quality that characterized the original film. The release window for the first film has been extended to October 4, and the sequel is scheduled for release in 2027.
In the content creation industry, there’s no shortage of cases where people cut corners to make a quick buck, nor is it uncommon to see teams get carried away by their initial success and start cutting corners. It’s truly rare to find a mother-son duo like this one who consistently stay grounded and let their work speak for itself.This commitment to quality alone is enough to make audiences hopeful that the sequel will live up to the original’s reputation. If you have the time, why not check out the original film? It’s also a way to show some support for creators who are willing to put in the hard work.
