Liu was called "one of the most exciting and unique talents to emerge from China in the 2000s" by the The Hollywood Reporter,[2] with Oxhide being described in 2006 as "the most important Chinese film of the past several years".
Liu used digital video and a series of long takes to stage scenes from the life of her family in their cramped Beijing apartment.
Her mother and her father—a struggling skilled leather craftsman whose work material gives the film its title—perform their own parts, alongside the 23-year-old director as herself.
With a similar focus on her family, this "sequel" was seen as more simple in construction, employing only nine separate shots in a running time of over two hours.
At the end of the year, Oxhide II was named one of the three masterpieces of Chinese cinema in the 2000s by critic Shelly Kraicer.