Chinese Beaver is a series of 3D CGI animations posted to Bilibili by user 乙人教动画 starting in November 2022, featuring a gopher or beaver character re-enacting scenes from Hong Kong films and Chinese TV dramas. The clips went viral on Twitter and TikTok in November 2023 and got folded into the Literally Me Guys genre.
Origin
The series was created by Chinese Bilibili user 乙人教动画, whose handle translates to something like "B teaches animation"[1]. Their first video with the gopher-like character went up on Bilibili on November 18th, 2022 and pulled in around 53,000 likes over the following year[2].
A year later, on November 14th, 2023, the same creator posted a follow-up on Bilibili in which the gopher character harasses a frog[1]. That second clip picked up roughly 43,000 likes within six days and became the version that Western viewers would end up seeing[1].
- Platform: Bilibili (source), Twitter / TikTok (viral spread)
- Creator: 乙人教动画 (B teaches animation)
- Date: 2022
Overview
Chinese Beaver is a run of short 3D CGI animations starring a stocky rodent-like character that looks somewhere between a bear, a beaver, a gopher and a groundhog[1]. The clips take dramatic live-action scenes, most famously from the Hong Kong film series A Better Tomorrow and the 2023 Chinese TV drama The Knockout, and re-stage them with the same blocking, camera angles and dialogue but rendered in low-budget CGI[1].
The character is also called the Chinese Gopher or the A Better Tomorrow Bear, and the humor comes from the mismatch between the serious source scenes and the goofy, oddly proportioned animal actor[1]. English-speaking Twitter users latched onto the videos in late 2023, quote-tweeting them with reaction jokes and eventually pulling the character into the Literally Me Guys template[1].
How It Spread
On November 16th, 2023, TikTok account @10254446zgw reposted both Bilibili animations, and the two uploads pulled in about 983,500 and 250,900 plays over four days[3]. Two days later the same account uploaded side-by-side edits pairing the animations with their live-action source scenes, which commenters identified as coming from A Better Tomorrow[3].
The jump to English-speaking Twitter came on November 17th, 2023, when @DamielBernaldo reposted one of the @10254446zgw TikToks and racked up over 20.2 million views and 27,000 likes in three days[4]. Quote tweets rolled in almost immediately, including a November 19th QRT from @DBloxkzTrinidad in the style of the This Probably Funny AF format that pulled 63,000 likes in a day[1]. An English-dubbed edit shared by @KmaFr_ on November 29th, 2023 picked up around 11,000 likes in five days[5].
The series kept going into 2024. On March 19th, 2024, 乙人教动画 posted a new Bilibili animation that added a monkey character alongside the beaver, and the clip cleared 25,000 likes over two months[6]. That video was based on the "Tell Lao Mo, I want to eat fish" scene from The Knockout, a 2023 Chinese crime drama[1]. A May 11th, 2024 tweet from @ascinhiding, captioned "the budget went up wtf," pushed the newer entry past 84,000 likes in two days[1].
How to Use
The videos are typically shared as standalone reposts, often paired with a side-by-side of the original live-action scene so viewers can catch the shot-for-shot match[3]. On Twitter, a common convention is to quote-tweet the clip with an unrelated caption about a personal mood or situation, treating the beaver's dramatic delivery as a reaction to whatever the poster is describing[1]. Users who slot the character into the Literally Me Guys template will often use a still frame of the beaver mid-scene[1].
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Chinese Beaver?
Chinese Beaver is a series of 3D CGI animations by Bilibili user 乙人教动画 that restage scenes from A Better Tomorrow and The Knockout with a gopher-like animal character in the lead role[1].
Where did Chinese Beaver come from?
The first video was posted to Bilibili on November 18th, 2022 by user 乙人教动画, and the follow-up on November 14th, 2023 is the one that went viral in the West[2].
What does Chinese Beaver mean?
The joke is the gap between the serious cinematic source material and the low-budget CGI rodent playing the lead, which is why the clips got pulled into the Literally Me Guys genre[1].
How do you use Chinese Beaver?
People typically repost the clip on Twitter with an unrelated reaction caption, or share it side-by-side with the original film scene it copies[3].
Is Chinese Beaver still popular?
The series had its biggest Western viral moment in November 2023 and got a second wave in May 2024 when a new Knockout-based entry cleared 84,000 likes on Twitter[1].
