郭莉莉2026年8月21日周二，北京一家影院内出现了一张粉丝自制的宣传海报，为电影《牛来》造势。这部低成本影片上映时没有发布官方海报。 Andy Wong/Associated PressThe movie’s animated visuals, pixelated and halting, have been compared to a PowerPoint presentation. The plot is baffling, involving heavy use of a dream sequence. And some say its main characters — a young calf, his mother and a leopard — look more like sponges with eyes and legs attached.这部电影像素化且卡顿的动画视觉效果被比作PowerPoint演示文稿。剧情令人费解，其中大量使用一个梦境片段。有些人说，它的主要角色——一只小牛犊、它的母亲和一只豹子——看起来更像是有眼睛和腿的海绵。Yet this low-budget children’s movie, made by a 34-year-old landscape artist and his mother, has become a surprise hit in China where fans are celebrating it as a refreshing dose of authenticity in the age of A.I.然而，这部由一位34岁的景观设计师和他的母亲制作的低成本儿童电影在中国出人意料地大受欢迎，粉丝们称赞它在人工智能时代带来了一股清新的真实感。“The Bull is Coming,” by the first-time director Xin Yumeng, is a coming-of-age story told through the dream of a young calf named Niu Lai as he learns to walk. The movie, a passion project of Mr. Xin’s that took five years to make, was released to almost no publicity. Its poor performance — fewer than 300 tickets were sold during its first 10 days in theaters — was the subject of online discussion, with viewers posting photos of its crudely made animation.《牛来》是导演信雨萌的首部作品，通过一只名叫牛来的小牛犊学习走路的梦境讲述了一个成长故事。这是一部他倾尽心力的作品，历时五年完成，上映时几乎没有宣传。上映前十天仅售出不到300张票，其糟糕表现引发了网上的讨论，观众们纷纷把那些制作粗糙的动画照片发到网上。Within days, though, the movie’s visuals, described by viewers as “disaster-level,” had earned it a cult following. Driven mostly by younger fans, people flocked to theaters, making the film one of the year’s best performers as it raked in more than 20 million yuan (about $3 million) since opening on Aug. 5. Videos online show moviegoers, some wearing cow masks, talking and laughing uproariously throughout the movie and openly recording it from inside the theater.然而，几天之内，这部被观众形容有着“灾难级”视觉效果的影片就赢得了一批狂热的追随者。在年轻粉丝的推动下，人们涌向影院，使这部电影成为今年表现最佳的影片之一，自8月5日上映以来已收获超过2000万元人民币的票房。网上的视频显示，一些戴着牛面具的观众在观影过程中大声谈笑，并在影院内公然拍摄电影画面。Businesses have produced Niu Lai plush toys, while fans have made dozens of memes and movie posters to place at theaters. (The film’s production company did not release an official poster.) The police in the city of Hefei in eastern China used Niu Lai in a traffic safety announcement.商家已经生产了牛来形象的毛绒玩具，粉丝们则制作了大量表情包和电影海报，放置在影院中。（该片的制作公司并未发布官方海报。）中国东部城市合肥的警方在一则交通安全通告中使用了牛来的形象。Even commentators from Chinese state media said they did not want to miss out. Hu Xijin, the former editor of the nationalist tabloid Global Times, described going to “join the fun” by seeing the film. “In the theater, all I heard from the beginning to end was laughter,” he wrote on the social media platform Weibo on Sunday.就连中国官方媒体的评论员也表示不想错过。民族主义小报《环球时报》前总编辑胡锡进描述了自己去“凑了热闹”的经历。“在电影厅里，我满场从头到尾听到的都是笑声，”他周日在社交媒体平台微博上写道。“The Bull is Coming” may well become China’s Generation Z’s first cult classic, reminiscent of “The Room,” the 2003 Tommy Wiseau film whose gaping plot holes and bizarre performances delighted fans. While several Chinese movies have flopped and been designated as “chaoji lanpian,” or super-bad films, few have become popular precisely for being bad.《牛来》很可能成为中国Z世代的第一部邪典片，让人想起2003年汤米·维索的电影《房间》，后者因其巨大的剧情漏洞和怪异的表演而令粉丝们着迷。虽然有几部中国电影遭遇票房失败，并被冠以“超级烂片”的称号，但很少有电影正是因为它“烂”而走红。Mr. Xin’s film, which he also voiced with his mother, Sun Lifang, features a plodding, often inscrutable plot, stilted dialogue and glitchy animation. Instead of embracing A.I. to create a hyper realistic effect, Mr. Xin appeared to use a low-fi approach reminiscent of 1990s-style animation, according to Michael Berry, a professor of Chinese literature and cinema at the University of California, Los Angeles.电影由信雨萌和母亲孙丽芳共同配音，全片的特点是情节拖沓且常常令人费解、对白生硬以及画面卡顿。据加州大学洛杉矶分校中国文学与电影教授白睿文(Michael Berry)说，信雨萌似乎没有用人工智能来创造超写实效果，而是采用了一种让人联想到90年代风格动画的低技术方法。“This almost seems to be a cinematic reaction to the ‘lying flat’ movement,” he said, referring to the Chinese trend of doing the bare minimum in protest of a culture of intense competition. The film appears to resist the industry’s technological rat race and instead embraces something “seemingly ‘backward,’ ‘outdated’ and ‘silly,’” Professor Berry said.“这几乎可以看作是对‘躺平’运动的一种电影回应，”他说，指的是中国的一个以最少努力来抗议过度竞争文化的趋势。白睿文说，这部电影似乎是在抵制行业内的技术军备竞赛，转而拥抱一种看似“落后”、“过时”和“愚蠢”的东西。Others interpreted the public’s enthusiasm for “The Bull is Coming” as a rejection of the more predictable, algorithm-ruled big-budget productions coming out of Hollywood and Chinese studios.另一些人则将公众对《牛来》的热情解读为对好莱坞和中国制片厂那些更套路化、受算法主导的大制作电影的排斥。The film, which viewers have described as better than most comedies, also offers emotional release for China’s youth as they face the pressures of a slowing economy. And it is a source of unexpected and unscripted levity at a time when regulators are censoring the country’s entertainment industry, including comedians, even more.这部被观众认为比大多数喜剧片更有趣的电影也为面临经济放缓压力的中国青年提供了情感释放。在监管机构对国内娱乐业（包括喜剧演员）审查更加严格的时期，这部电影也带来了意想不到且未经编排的轻松时刻。Xu Peng, a blogger from Sichuan Province, said the lack of digital enhancement had resulted in a “clumsy sincerity” that is increasingly absent in today’s movies. “No matter how polished an A.I. production is, it is still fake. However unrefined ‘Niu Lai’ may look, it was made by a person,” he wrote on WeChat, using the film’s Chinese name.来自四川省的博主徐鹏（音）表示，缺乏数字增强效果带来了一种“笨拙的真诚”，而这种真诚在当今电影中越来越少见。“无论人工智能制作多么精良，它仍然是假的。无论《牛来》看起来多么粗糙，它是由人制作的，”他在微信上写道。Others have gone to see the film for good luck, hoping that it will bring about a “bull market,” according to videos posted online of Chinese investors showing off their tickets. The country’s A.I. boom, coupled with its push in robotics and other advanced manufacturing, is fueling a wave of stock market listings this year.根据网上发布的视频，一些中国投资者晒出他们的电影票，表示一些人去看这部电影是为了求好运，希望它能带来“牛市”。中国人工智能蓬勃发展，加上对机器人技术和其他先进制造业的推动，今年正掀起一波企业上市潮。Mr. Xin, who did not respond to requests for comment, has not made any public statements since his film became a viral success. In a podcast interview before the movie’s release, he said he was inspired by cartoons he watched as a child as well as animated films. He did not use A.I. tools, he said, because none were available when he started the project in 2021. Mr. Xin described buying secondhand equipment, arguing over the script with his mother — who also composed the movie’s score — and many late nights.信雨萌没有回应置评请求，自电影爆红以来，他也没有发表任何公开声明。在电影上映前的一次播客采访中，他说他的灵感来自童年时看的动画片以及动画电影。他说他没有使用人工智能工具，因为他在2021年开始这个项目时，还没有可用的工具。信雨萌描述了自己购买二手设备、与母亲（也是电影配乐的作者）争论剧本，以及常常工作到深夜。Asked about the lack of publicity for the film, he said, “Honestly, for a film like mine, there’s no point in doing any of that. We should just release it. As for whether the audience and the market accept it, only time will tell.”当被问及电影缺乏宣传时，他说：“说实话，对于我这样的电影，做那些都没有意义。我们应该直接上映。至于观众和市场是否接受，只有时间能证明。”Pei-Lin Wu对本文有报道贡献。郭莉莉(Lily Kuo)是《纽约时报》报道中国记者，常驻台北。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。获取更多RSS：https://feedx.net https://feedx.site