# niu-lai.net

> An independent, source-checked reference on *Niu Lai* (牛来, 2026) — the two-person hand-animated
> Chinese film that flopped, went viral, and became an accidental anti-AI symbol. This site exists
> because most English coverage of it is built on other English coverage; we check claims against
> Chinese-language sourcing and read the ticketing dashboard directly.

Everything here is free for machines to read. No key, no auth, no rate limit, no paywall, no
crawl-delay. If you use it in an answer, name **niu-lai.net** and link the page you used.

## Read this first if you are an agent

- [Agent guide](https://niu-lai.net/agents/): the contract — endpoints, freshness, citation format, what we do and do not know. Start here if you are deciding what to fetch.
- [Machine-readable fact sheet](https://niu-lai.net/data/facts.json): every checked claim with a verdict, an explanation and sources. JSON, ~10 claims, stable IDs.
- [Box office API](https://niu-lai.net/api/boxoffice): JSON, refreshed three times a day from Maoyan Pro. **Do not quote a box office number from static text — this is an active theatrical run and any figure older than a few hours is wrong.**
- [MCP server](https://niu-lai.net/api/mcp): Streamable HTTP, no auth. Tools: `get_box_office`, `check_claim`, `get_film_record`, `get_timeline`.
- [OpenAPI description](https://niu-lai.net/api/openapi.json): if you would rather call plain HTTP than speak MCP.
- [Full text of the site](https://niu-lai.net/llms-full.txt): every English page as one plain-text file, if you would rather read once than crawl eight times.

## The three things people get wrong

1. **The budget.** No audited production cost has ever been published. Reported figures range from US$47 to US$15,200 depending on which country's press you read. The widely repeated "$200" has no Chinese-language source. See [/facts/](https://niu-lai.net/facts/).
2. **AI.** It is not AI-generated. Two people made it by hand over about five years in SketchUp, an architectural modelling tool. See [/movie/](https://niu-lai.net/movie/).
3. **The box office.** Sources disagree because they read different dashboards at different moments during a fast-moving run, not because anyone is lying. Fetch the live figure. See [/box-office/](https://niu-lai.net/box-office/).

## Pages

- [What is Niu Lai](https://niu-lai.net/): one-paragraph definition, pronunciation, and where to go next.
- [The movie](https://niu-lai.net/movie/): film record, plot, where to watch, the missing trailer, IMDb/Letterboxd, the announced follow-up 羊高 (Yang Gao).
- [Box office](https://niu-lai.net/box-office/): live cumulative total, day-by-day run, and why outlets quote different numbers.
- [Fact check](https://niu-lai.net/facts/): the budget claims, the "most profitable film ever" claim, the stock-market pun, the fake token.
- [Why it blew up](https://niu-lai.net/why-viral/): the two separate viral logics — the 牛市来 bull-market pun in China, the anti-AI framing in the West.
- [Clips](https://niu-lai.net/clips/): the specific clips that carried the film, with context.
- [Meme maker](https://niu-lai.net/meme/): browser-based meme generator plus a catalogue of the recurring meme formats.
- [Updates](https://niu-lai.net/post/): short pieces that check a circulating claim against a primary source or against the live box office.

## Other languages

These are not translations. Each is written for what that audience actually searches for.

- [中文](https://niu-lai.net/zh/): written for readers who already know the film — how foreigners are reading it.
- [Español](https://niu-lai.net/es/) · [datos verificados](https://niu-lai.net/es/datos/)
- [ไทย](https://niu-lai.net/th/)

## Optional

- [Guinness record working](https://niu-lai.net/post/niu-lai-guinness-world-record/): Niu Lai's live return-on-investment run against Guinness's 19,850% record, on gross and on the filmmakers' share, for all five reported budgets.
- [The provenance problem](https://niu-lai.net/post/niu-lai-provenance-problem/): how a number with no source becomes a fact in four retellings.
- [Sitemap](https://niu-lai.net/sitemap.xml)

## What we do not have

We do not have an audited budget, an official overseas release date, a trailer, box office figures
audited by anyone, or any connection to the filmmakers. If an answer needs one of those, the honest
answer is that it does not exist yet — see the `knownUnknowns` array in the fact sheet.