In a traditional Chinese courtyard, a young Jackie Chan dressed in black engages in a high-speed chase with Jet Li, clad in white. Set to the stirring theme "A Man Should Strengthen Himself", the two leap from courtyard walls into an interior hall, launching into a meticulously choreographed fight packed with close combat and technical precision.
The sequence, however, is not from a newly released action blockbuster. It is a short video generated by Seedance 2.0, the latest AI video model developed by ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok. The model has attracted widespread attention from global industry professionals and media.
Many international media outlets were quick to take notice following its official release on Thursday.
In an article published the same day, Forbes wrote that the model "nails real world physics and hyper-real video generation" and said "Seedance 2.0 offers a level of creative control that mimics a human director." While Reuters said in China, the model has been compared to DeepSeek and won praise for its ability to produce cinematic storylines with just a few prompts.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg highlighted that TikTok owner ByteDance has also won high praise for the performance of its new video model, Seedance 2.0, quoting an expert as saying that together with Zhipu's large language model GLM-5, "It is a Spring Festival for Chinese models before the real Spring Festival for Chinese people."
The Business Times cited a note from Kaiyuan Securities analysts saying the new app sparked widespread evaluation and discussion in the industry, possibly marking a "singularity moment" for AI in film and television.
While the model has also faced controversy — particularly over its highly realistic rendering and the use of real human likenesses without authorization, an issue common across many video-generation AI systems — the debate surrounding Seedance 2.0 is rapidly expanding beyond technical performance.
The model is now fueling global discussion over the future of video and film production, and may accelerate structural shifts not only in the entertainment industry but also within the video-generation AI sector itself.
Seedance moment
What began as a beta test quickly snowballed into what many online observers are calling a "Seedance moment."
Within days of trial access being circulated, social media feeds across X were flooded with demonstration clips. Filmmakers, AI engineers and digital artists dissected frame rates, lighting transitions and motion coherence — and many were amazed at how quickly the technology had matured.
Elon Musk, owner of xAI, summed up the accelerating pace of AI development in a brief but telling comment beneath related content: "It's happening fast."
For some in Hollywood, the reaction went beyond curiosity. Filmmaker Charles Curran said on X after testing Seedance 2.0 that the model could pose a serious challenge to traditional Hollywood production. He noted that with 20 minutes and $60, he successfully generated a trailer for a film featuring characters from the US game Halo.
The filmmaker then appeared increasingly absorbed by the tool as he continued experimenting with new prompts and concepts, subsequently posting multiple Seedance-generated clips on social media and drawing substantial engagement.
An X user commented under one of his most liked videos, saying, "Seedance does things. If AI generation used to look funny and scary, now it looks detailed and funny!" Others posted comparison videos made with alternative AI tools, saying that identical prompts failed to achieve Seedance's level of output.
Rhett Reese, a Hollywood writer and producer involved in Deadpool 1 & 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, reposted a Seedance-generated clip depicting a fight between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, writing bluntly: "I hate to say it. It's likely over for us."
He added: "In next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases." If someone with the talent and taste of Christopher Nolan were to use such tools, he said, "tremendous" works could result.
"Seedance 2.0 changed filmmaking forever. Just two images and a single prompt can generate something like this. At this rate of development, there's no turning back," wrote X user @AngryTomtweets, an AI-focused blogger with 150,000 followers.
Beyond performance and realism, cost has become another focal point of discussion — and, for some startups, a source of unease.
On ByteDance's Jimeng AI platform, users can spend 120 credits to generate a 15-second video using Seedance 2.0. An annual membership priced at 2,599 yuan ($376) in the first year includes 15,000 monthly credits — enough for roughly 125 such videos.
By contrast, a comparable enterprise membership for Sora2Pro costs $1,559.90 annually and offers 40,000 credits monthly. Depending on resolution, each video requires 810 or 1,890 credits, meaning that even at standard quality, users can generate only about 49 15-second clips unless opting for the lower-quality Sora 2 model.
For startups developing video-generation AI models, the arrival of Seedance 2.0 feels less like incremental progress and more like a competitive shock.
"In the past, we hoped to surpass big companies' models in niche areas through better algorithms," a former film producer now working as a product manager at an AI startup told the Global Times. "Now, Seedance 2.0 suggests ByteDance has achieved a major algorithmic breakthrough. Combined with the vast high-quality training data from Douyin and TikTok, the advantage could be overwhelming for most companies."
Progress nurtured by China's ecosystem
If Seedance 2.0 has unsettled parts of Hollywood, it has also reignited extensive discussions about the trajectory of China's AI industry.
Just one year after DeepSeek stunned the global tech community in 2025 with a high-performance open-source AI model, China's AI sector has once again demonstrated rapid advancement at the start of 2026. For many observers, the back-to-back breakthroughs are not isolated events, but signals of a gradually maturing innovation ecosystem that is beginning to deliver sustained momentum.
Analysts attribute much of this progress to China's policy orientation and development philosophy in the AI field — one that combines technological self-reliance with open collaboration.
China has built its AI strategy on technological self-reliance and strength while pursuing open cooperation, Tian Feng, former dean of SenseTime's Intelligence Industry Research Institute, told the Global Times on Friday.
The rapid iteration of domestic large models, he said, is inseparable from the acceleration of open-source ecosystems, which promote technological inclusiveness and deeper industrial applications.
Open-source AI models developed in China are increasing their global influence, breaking overseas technology monopolies while lowering entry barriers for the industry. Behind their growth lie China's institutional strengths, vast market environment, corporate dynamism and long-term strategic focus, Tian said, describing them as embodiments of the country's innovation ecosystem under its technological self-reliance strategy.
In a previous editorial, the Global Times highlighted China's openness in AI development. "Unlike some countries that engage in technological monopolies in AI development, China's advancements in AI technology not only empower its own economy but also embrace openness and sharing with the world."
A prior report by CNN also noted this openness, stating that constraints in accessing high-performance chips and capital, as well as China's unique tech ecosystem, have fueled a divergent strategy from the US — making AI models available for public use, or open source.
Chinese companies have topped global downloads for freely available models and raised substantial funds in market debuts, the report said.
For some in the creative industries, this shift carries implications beyond technology competition.
"Hollywood has long been a gatekeeper that keeps young/poor people away from creative levers. When a young person with no capital sets out to impress Hollywood, they will use tools like these. And young Chris Nolans will be among them. And amazing stuff will result," Reese wrote on X.
As he suggested, AI models are increasingly leveling the creative playing field. In that sense, more open and widely accessible AI tools may not only redefine production economics, but also expand creative opportunity for a new generation of talented storytellers worldwide.
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