Seedance 2.0 and the era of ‘one-man film crew’

In an ancient Chinese temple courtyard, young Jackie Chan dressed in black is chasing Jet Li dressed in white at high speed with heroic music in the background. The two jumped from the courtyard wall into the inner hall, starting a martial arts fight full of close combat and skillful, precise techniques. The video posted on Douyin currently attracts more than two million views.

In another two-minute video on Weibo, rapper and music producer Ye (Kanye West) and star Kim Kardashian play historical characters, speaking and singing in Mandarin. The video has more than a million views and thousands of comments.

The above scenes are not from the upcoming “blockbuster” movie. Instead, they are created by Seedance 2.0, the latest AI video model developed by ByteDance and released in mid-February. According to the company, Seedance 2.0 is aimed at professional filmmakers, e-commerce, and advertisers. The strength of the model is the ability to process text, images, and sound at the same time, helping to reduce content creation costs.

ByteDance has not yet launched the commercial version of Seedance 2.0, currently only allowing a limited number of domestic users to register through a series of ecosystem applications such as Jimeng, Doubao or Xiaoyunque.

After more than a week, the authenticity of videos created from this tool made Chinese social networks stir. Many people compare it to the second “DeepSeek moment” in the field of artificial intelligence, as noted by Global Times. Feng Ji, CEO of Game Science, the developer behind the “blockbuster” game Black Myth: Wukongevaluating this as “the most powerful video creation model on the planet”, predicts this technology will completely change the landscape of the video industry, at least in the short term.

Seedance 2.0’s appeal currently extends far beyond China. On X, Reddit or Discord, a series of videos created from this model are posted. Some seek to register accounts for ByteDance applications for early experience, others create instructional videos, such as roaming to China or tips for registering a domestic account.

International media also highly appreciate ByteDance’s AI. According to Forbesthe model “accurately recreates real-world physics and creates hyper-realistic videos”, while also providing a level of creative control that “mimics a human director”. Meanwhile, Reuters and Bloomberg The general consensus is that Seedance 2.0 surpasses its competitors in its ability to build cinematic storylines with just a few taps.

“Everything happens so fast,” Elon Musk wrote about Seedance 2.0 on social network X last week.

Filmmakers, AI engineers and digital artists also quickly experienced and made their own opinions. Through analysis of frame rate, lighting effect transitions, and motion consistency, many people are amazed at the rapid maturity of command-based video creation technology.

According to experts, Seedance 2.0’s strength lies in its ability to simultaneously support four input methods including image, video, audio and text. With just a few lines of command or reference data, the model can immediately “publish” a 60-second video with diverse shooting angles, complying with the rules of physics and lighting, with complete original sound.

On X, Hollywood director Charles Curran said that after experiencing Seedance 2.0, with only 20 minutes and 60 USD, he successfully created a trailer for a movie with characters from the game. Halo. Screenwriter and producer Rhett Reese, who is involved in two projects Deadpool, Deadpool 2 and Deadpool & Wolverinereposted a clip from Seedance 2.0, depicting the “war” between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, claiming that the “era of one-man filmmaking” had begun.

“I’m sorry to say this. Maybe it’s all over for us,” Reese wrote on

“Previously, we hoped to still outperform AI in specialized areas,” a former film producer who now works as a product manager at an AI startup in Beijing told Global Times. “Seedance 2.0 now shows that ByteDance has achieved a major algorithmic breakthrough. Combining the huge amount of high-quality training video data from Douyin and TikTok, this advantage can overwhelm most competitors.”

Tian Feng, former director of SenseTime’s AI research department, assessed that Chinese AI models are increasingly increasing their global influence, breaking the technology monopoly abroad while reducing barriers to entry in the industry, with Seedance 2.0 being the next typical case.

“Behind this development are China’s institutional strength, environment, large market, enterprise dynamism and long-term strategic vision,” Mr. Tian commented.

The West objected

Last week, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) condemned Seedance 2.0 for large-scale copyright infringement, after the AI ​​video “Tom Cruise fights Brad Pitt” attracted attention. The MPA spokesperson said that the US model of unauthorized use of copyrighted works, without effective control mechanisms for infringement, ignores existing copyright laws that protect the rights of creators and sustain millions of jobs in the content industry.

Gabriel Miller, head of Paramount Skydance’s intellectual property department, sent a letter to ByteDance, accusing the company of “flagrant violation” of intellectual property rights, requesting to stop using the Seedance and Seedream AI platforms. Disney also submitted a similar legal request, claiming that ByteDance provided an unauthorized database of characters belonging to major brands such as Star Wars and Marvel. The Human Artistry Campaign also condemned Seedance 2.0, calling it “an attack on every creator around the world”.

In fact, according to TechCrunchthe video created by Seedance 2.0 is “full of copyrighted images”. A content creator posted a video comparing a scene from the movie F1 (2025) with Seedance’s nearly identical version and claiming to “remake the most expensive scene for only 9 cents”. Some other videos are also copyrighted, such as characters from animated series One Piece and Dragon Ballas well as images of many famous American actors being used to create videos.

“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights. We have listened to concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,” a ByteDance spokesperson told NBC News. “We are strengthening protections to prevent users from illegally using intellectual property and image rights.”