Author: David, Shenchao TechFlow
Hollywood is searching the internet for a Chinese person. But the person being sought didn't even leave a usable contact method.
On the evening of May 10th, PJ Ace, the founder of the Los Angeles-based AI film studio Genre.ai, reposted an AI short film called "Zombie Sweeper" on X. PJ Ace is probably one of the most influential figures in the AI video circle, with his own content garnering over 300 million views across platforms.
His evaluation of this film was extremely high, calling it "one of the best short films I've seen in recent years."
The premise of the short film is roughly this: a robot cowboy rides an ostrich through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, battles zombies, and has a love affair with a plastic mannequin. Besides having a sufficiently cyberpunk and fantastical theme, the visuals and music also possess a blockbuster quality.
(Viewers who haven't seen it can click here to get a feel for it.)
Within a few hours of PJ's post going live, its views had already reached 5 million.
He then followed up with a search post: "I really want to hire the director of this film, but I can't find him. I think he's a Chinese creator on Douyin."
A person holding Hollywood content production resources is posting a lost-and-found notice on Twitter to find a Chinese person? The author finds this scenario even more surreal than the short film itself...
His reasoning was that before AI, something of this quality would have cost at least $500,000 and 6 months, yet this creator achieved this level with just his own efforts. So, the comments quickly turned into a search party. Some searched for the author ID 'MX-Shell', others traced clues back to Bilibili.
A large-scale cross-platform search, stretching from Hollywood to Bilibili's comment section, had just begun.
However, on the same day PJ Ace was anxiously posting missing person notices on Twitter, this short film hadn't caused much of a stir on Bilibili and Douyin, lying quietly in the information feed.
A short film made by a Chinese person using Chinese AI tools had to first circle around to the other side of the Pacific, become popular there, and then be seen by its own people. The process of this large-scale cross-platform search making its way back to China itself became an "export to domestic sales" phenomenon.
Letting the Hobby Be Seen
The person PJ Ace is looking for has labeled himself on Bilibili with five characters: Amateur Enthusiast.
The author, Mx-Shell, claims in the comments to be from Yunnan, graduated from a technical secondary school, never attended university, and never worked for any film company. The description on his Bilibili profile, 'Non-professional amateur enthusiast', seems sincerely humble rather than mere self-deprecation.
Reportedly, "Zombie Sweeper" was made by him using ByteDance's AI video tool Seedance 2.0. One person, no team, no investment, independently completed from conception to final cut, even the background music was self-produced.
The production cycle was about 10 days, with the token cost equivalent to roughly 3,000 RMB.
And then came the part the author finds most fascinating in the whole incident.
PJ Ace's search post was seen by millions on X, but Mx-Shell himself couldn't see it at all, unaware that a Hollywood director across the Pacific was looking for him.
When the news eventually made its way back to China, the comments under the video exploded, but Mx-Shell himself neither understood English nor had channels to connect with overseas media. He even posted his QQ email, asking netizens to help forward it to the other side.
Hollywood was looking for him in English on Twitter, and he was looking for Hollywood in the Bilibili comment section with a QQ email. This cross-platform conversation had a happy ending thanks to the matchmaking efforts of netizens.
Currently, PJ has already emailed him. In the letter, PJ Ace said he runs a film studio in Los Angeles, the short film got over 4 million views the day it was shared, and then asked: Are you interested in becoming a Hollywood director?
An amateur enthusiast received an olive branch extended by Hollywood. This is perhaps another wonderful and serendipitous instance of talent discovery in the AI era.
Talent Going Outbound, Export to Domestic Sales
Let's talk about why this film was quiet on Bilibili at first but exploded when posted on X.
On Bilibili, a short film labeled 'Contains AI-generated content' has to compete for the same information feed with professional animations from million-follower UP owners, gameplay streams, and popular fan-made content. Mx-Shell had only a few thousand followers at the time, no recommendation spots—a grain of sand falling into a desert.
X is a completely different world. The overseas AI creator community has developed its own ecosystem over the past two years, with key opinion leaders, consensus on evaluation, and mature dissemination networks.
PJ Ace is a core node in this ecosystem. When he saw "Zombie Sweeper," he saw the work itself; AI was just the tool. The fan base spread it through relay, igniting the content within hours.
The subsequent data backflow also illustrates this point. Domestic viewers recognized its merit as well, with Bilibili garnering over 900,000 views and 100,000 likes. Content has never been the primary problem in the AI era; the problem is whether it gets delivered to the right audience.
This reminds the author of a similar phenomenon: Token outbound.
Chinese large language models sell computing power to the world via APIs. The electricity never leaves China's power grid, but value is delivered cross-border via tokens. Mx-Shell's story is the creative version of the same logic. Talent and aesthetics never left his computer, but the work, through a short film, also completed cross-border delivery. Seedance is ByteDance's, the computing power is from Chinese data centers, the creator is from Yunnan, and the first large-scale audience was across the Pacific.
If token outbound is electricity outbound, then "Zombie Sweeper" is talent outbound.
Why is this path being paved starting from China? Probably because China simultaneously possesses two things. The world's most fiercely competitive AI video tool market, where ByteDance, Alibaba, and Kuaishou are stepping on each other's toes, driving generation costs to the floor. The Seedance 2.0 used by Mx-Shell has relatively low spending costs.
And a large number of creative people who previously had no outlet—people with aesthetic sense and ideas, lacking only a handy tool.
The former gave the latter a key. Once the door was pushed open, the global market was on the other side.
AI is a Good Shovel, But You Have to Dig Yourself
The story isn't over yet.
After Mx-Shell connected with PJ Ace, he posted a lengthy article responding to the public attention. Thirteen points, each one substantial. The author thinks this text itself is worth a careful read.
He said the style of "Zombie Sweeper" is called Atom Punk, a form of retro-futurism. The creative inspiration came from Pixar's "WALL-E" and was made according to the standards of the popular Netflix series "Love, Death & Robots."
One of the creative intents was to let overseas audiences see the current level of domestic AI production.
Shot control relies on prompts, which were basically crafted by hand. Post-production was done by one person. Even the background music was original. Looking at these details together, you realize Mx-Shell is definitely not just someone who "got lucky with AI tools."
He has visual aesthetics, being a photographer by background. He has auditory aesthetics, being an independent musician. He has a sense for narrative, setting his own bar according to Love, Death & Robots standards.
AI tools gave him productivity, but the aesthetics and judgment are his own.
So, the author feels the saying "AI lets everyone make movies" is only half right. AI has indeed lowered the production barrier to the floor, but computing power can be bought; aesthetics cannot.
Anyone can use Seedance 2.0, so why was it specifically Mx-Shell who created something that made Hollywood post a search notice? The tools are equal, but the people using them are vastly different.
This leads to another interesting angle.
The investment ByteDance has put into Seedance 2.0 is unknown to the outside world, but so far, the best advertisement for this tool might have been made by a technical secondary school graduate from Yunnan.
ByteDance's marketing department couldn't have planned such a story because the story's persuasive power lies precisely in it being spontaneous, grassroots, and unexpected.
The strongest proof for a platform product is always users creating things that exceed the platform's expectations. Taobao's early benchmark stories were rural women earning millions selling local specialties; YouTube's benchmark was teenagers in bedrooms making shows better than TV. Seedance 2.0's benchmark story is more creators like Mx-Shell.
According to DataEye data, the overseas AI short drama and webtoon market size is expected to reach $650 million in 2026, a sixfold year-on-year increase. Currently, two paths are running in this market:
One is the industrial route. Domestic teams mass-produce AI short dramas—zombies, werewolves, rags-to-riches stories—packaged into genre shells familiar to Western audiences, monetized through TikTok ad buys. Reports indicate multiple works have already achieved tens of millions of views. This path competes on capital, team, and production capacity, somewhat like the short video factories of the past.
The other is the path Mx-Shell took. One person, one computer, no ad buys, no scale. The content itself is the driving force for dissemination. A few thousand RMB in token cost, less than two weeks in cycle, exchanged not for platform revenue share, but for Hollywood actively reaching out.
Both paths can succeed, but the author finds the second path more noteworthy.
Because the barrier to the first path is money. If you have money, you can do it; it doesn't have much to do with the individual creator. The barrier to the second path is the person—the aesthetics, the judgment of content. These things AI cannot give you, and money cannot buy them.
He won't be the last to walk this path.
China has a large number of creators with aesthetic sense, ideas, and a desire to express. Previously, what stood in their way was equipment, funds, teams, education. Now, these barriers are being dismantled one by one by AI tools. The only remaining question is: how to be seen?
Mx-Shell's answer was a QQ email and a group of enthusiastic netizens. The next person might have a different method.
But before a truly developed domestic ecosystem for AI creation grows, this detour of export to domestic sales will probably have to be taken a while longer.
