They are sharing clips praising Niu Lai's "hand-crafted" method - a reference to the poor animation quality - as "proof" that its creators did not use AI.

"That's some serious craftsmanship," a Weibo user wrote.

Another social media user called it "pure handmade" and the biggest "dark horse" of the summer movie season.

And the Chinese government wants to shut it down and go back to saying everyone loves AI:

But not everyone is celebrating its unexpected success. Over the weekend, a commentary by state-owned Beijing News warned that cinemas risk "losing the trust" of viewers if they "continue to lower their standard" with additional screenings of Niu Lai.

Mentioning previous movies that had been mocked for poor quality, Niu Lai has "once again lowered the bar for audiences' expectations of poorly made films", reads a commentary by state-owned Beijing News.

It urged cinemas to "act as gatekeepers for the audience, and clearly reject films that are obviously not up to standard instead of letting films like Niu Lai run rampant".

If people want something that's not AI, the Chinese government will just ban everything that's not AI...