If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. Except, in the case of Chinese animated film Niu Lai, it isn’t. 

It has no big-name stars, a pint-sized budget, virtually no marketing, a confusing plot and animation so rudimentary viewers couldn’t quite believe what they were watching.

Niu Lai has been called ugly, eerie, unpolished and crude. By all the usual rules of cinema, it should have disappeared without a trace.

Instead, it has become an unlikely box-office sensation in China.

For the first 10 days after its release on August 5, Niu Lai followed the trajectory you’d expect for a movie so comprehensively lambasted.

The 86-minute movie – made over five years by director Xin Yumeng and his mother, Sun Lifan – reportedly took just 10,000 yuan ($2080) at the box office during that period.

On some days, ticket sales amounted to little more than loose change.

Then the internet discovered it.

Clips of the film’s decidedly low-tech animation began circulating on Chinese social media, where viewers mocked everything from its clunky characters to its strange storyline.

But, it seems there is no such thing as bad press. The scathing reviews and ridicule appear to have sparked an obsession among Chinese moviegoers as the film quickly developed a cult following. 

People wanted to see just how bad it could possibly be.

Within days, Niu Lai had gone from playing to virtually empty cinemas to becoming one of China’s most talked-about movies, taking 8.2 million yuan ($1.7 million) in a single day and has continued raking it in since. 

The turnaround is such that Niu Lai is even rivalling Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and is now among the year’s top 10 highest-grossing animated films in China.

So bad you have to see it

Niu Lai, which translates as The Cow is Coming, follows a young calf and a skylark through a series of surreal adventures involving themes of family, courage and perseverance.

But it’s the film’s homemade appearance rather than its plot that has turned it into an unlikely cultural phenomenon.

The entire production was reportedly handled by just Xin and his mother, who also wrote and provided voices for the film.

Online reviewers have been less than charitable about the finished product, with its animation described as jarring and unfinished.

One widely shared review on Chinese film platform Douban declared it “bad in every aspect”.

Yet the worse the reviews became, the more people were drawn to seeing the “unbelievably terrible” movie.

Memes spread. Viewers began recommending the movie to friends as a prank. Cinemas that had initially given it few screenings suddenly found themselves dealing with a surge in demand.

Amid the intense criticism, some viewers have become more generous with their feedback.

Some praised the film’s sincerity and the extraordinary effort involved in two people spending five years bringing it to the screen.

Others see something refreshing in its rough edges at a time when audiences are surrounded by increasingly polished – and increasingly AI-assisted – digital content.

Whatever the reason, Niu Lai has managed something its creators could scarcely have planned: turning ridicule into the kind of publicity most independent filmmakers could only dream of.

Even cinemas appear to have embraced the joke, with posters featuring a colourless, hand-drawn calf and the handwritten invitation: “Come on over if you’re into the bizarre.”

The other warning was perhaps even more fitting: “No refunds.”