9 / 10
The One is one of the most underrated parallel universe action films ever made. Seen twice. The 9 rating is honest evaluation. James Wong directing. Jet Li in a dual role as both protagonist and antagonist. Jason Statham in an early American role. Carla Gugino as the woman who connects the two Lis. Delroy Lindo as the senior universe agent. A premise that uses parallel universes for body-stealing power accumulation rather than as general world-building. Released in November 2001, two months after September 11 reshaped Hollywood action releases. The timing buried the film. The work survives.
The Setup
The Multiverse contains 125 parallel universes. Each universe has its own version of every person. The universes are connected through monitored portals operated by the Multiverse Authority, a law enforcement agency. Travel between universes is permitted but tightly regulated.
Yulaw (Jet Li) is a former Multiverse Authority agent who has been hunting his own alternate selves. Each time he kills one of his alternates, the dead version’s energy and capability distribute across the remaining selves. He has killed 123 of his 125 versions. Two remain. Killing the last alternate will make him “The One,” a being whose physical and mental capability exceeds all known limits.
Gabe Law (Jet Li in the dual role) is an Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy in our universe. He is the second-to-last surviving alternate. He has no idea his other selves are being killed. He has been getting stronger and faster across the past few years but has assumed the changes were normal training improvements. Yulaw arrives in our universe to complete his project. Agents Roedecker (Delroy Lindo) and Funsch (Jason Statham) pursue Yulaw to stop him. The film documents the collision.
The Parallel Universe Premise
Most parallel universe films use the premise for world-building. The What If approach. Sliding Doors (1998). The Family Man (2000). What if this character had made a different choice? The One uses the premise differently. The 125 universes are not different paths the protagonist could have taken. They are different existing versions of the protagonist who all live simultaneously. The premise is closer to comic book multiverse than to alternative history.
The body-stealing mechanic is the film’s specific creative contribution. Killing alternates concentrates power. The structure functions as both action engine and moral question. Yulaw is not stealing power from strangers. He is stealing power from versions of himself. The other selves are equally him. He is murdering himself to make himself stronger. The mechanic gives the action sequences moral weight that most action films lack.
The constraint generates the film’s dramatic tension. Yulaw cannot be killed by ordinary means. Each kill makes him faster and stronger. The Multiverse Authority cannot match his capability through training because he has been training across 125 lifetimes simultaneously. Gabe has to kill Yulaw because Gabe is the only person whose capability has grown alongside Yulaw’s. The two are equally matched in ways no other characters can be.
For Writers
The One shows how to use a parallel universe premise for character work rather than for world-building. Most parallel universe stories spend their runtime exploring alternate versions of the world. The One spends its runtime exploring alternate versions of one person. The structure is narrower and more dramatically productive. The audience cares about Gabe and Yulaw because they are the same person making different choices. The audience does not have to track multiple parallel worlds. The audience only has to track two versions of the same character. The lesson for writers is that high-concept premises work better when scoped to character rather than to environment. If your parallel universe story is about how the world is different, your story is essentially a tourism brochure. If your parallel universe story is about how one person is different, your story is character drama with an unusual frame.
The Jet Li Dual Performance
Jet Li plays both Yulaw and Gabe. The two characters are physically identical but operate with different physical languages. Yulaw moves with practiced precision. He has trained across decades. He kills efficiently. He does not show effort. Gabe moves with the natural athleticism of a sheriff’s deputy who works out. He has trained, but he has not trained at Yulaw’s level. The contrast is the performance.
The duplicate work was done through a combination of split-screen, body doubles, and motion capture techniques that were ambitious for 2001. Many scenes show both characters in the same frame interacting. The interactions had to look like two physical people occupying the same space. The film delivers on this consistently. The audience accepts the doubling because the technical work is invisible.
Li was at peak during the production. He had moved from his Hong Kong career through Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), Romeo Must Die (2000), and Kiss of the Dragon (2001) into American action production. The One was his most ambitious American project to that point. Subsequent films would be more conventional. Li’s American period was approximately fifteen years. The One is one of its strongest entries.
The Jason Statham Performance
Jason Statham appears in an early American supporting role as Agent Funsch. The performance is interesting in retrospect because Statham was about a year and a half away from The Transporter (2002), which would establish him as an action lead. The Funsch role is the transitional moment between his British roles and the leading-man period that followed.
Statham plays Funsch as the younger partner to Delroy Lindo’s senior agent. He follows orders. He shoots competently. He does not get a defining solo sequence. The role is standard partner-cop material in a parallel universe context. What is notable is that Statham brings physical presence to a role that does not require physical presence. The performance is small. It is also the kind of small role that established him as someone studios should consider for larger roles.
Statham went on to The Transporter franchise, the Crank films, the Fast and Furious series, and substantial subsequent action filmography. The One is the moment before his American career properly began. Watching it now is watching an actor who is about to become a star but does not yet know it.
The Carla Gugino Performance
Carla Gugino plays T.K. Law, Gabe’s wife. The role is structurally smaller than the leads but emotionally central. Yulaw kills T.K. in his attack on Gabe’s house. The death is the film’s emotional engine. Gabe’s grief is the motivation for his final confrontation with Yulaw. Gugino has to establish the relationship convincingly enough that the audience feels the loss when it comes.
Gugino was in the transition between her television work (Spin City, Karen Sisco) and the broader film career that would develop across the 2000s. Sin City (2005), Watchmen (2009), and the Spy Kids franchise (2001-2003) were all approaching. The One was her work during the period when she was establishing the range that subsequent productions would draw on.
The Gabe-T.K. relationship is the film’s calmest moment. They have a barbecue in the backyard. They tease each other about Gabe’s escalating physical capability. They go to bed together. The domesticity is brief because the film is an action thriller, but the time spent on it is the basis for everything that follows. Yulaw cannot take T.K. from Gabe if Gugino has not made the audience care about T.K. first. The film succeeds because Gugino does the work.
The James Wong Direction
James Wong came to The One from a long collaboration with Glen Morgan on The X-Files. The two had also written and produced Final Destination (2000) together. Wong directed The One while Morgan produced. The combination was specific. Both men understood high-concept genre material and were comfortable with the structural ambition The One required.
The direction is workmanlike but committed. Wong does not impose a visual signature on the material. He delivers the action sequences cleanly. He stages the dramatic scenes with appropriate restraint. The combination produces a film that feels professional throughout. The action sequences hold up better than the dramatic scenes, but neither lets the film down.
The career trajectory after The One was mixed. Wong directed Final Destination 3 (2006) and Dragonball Evolution (2009). The Dragonball film was a disaster that effectively ended his Hollywood directing career. He returned to television work. The One remains one of the cleaner examples of what Wong could do when the material gave him room to work.
For Writers
The One uses the death of the protagonist’s wife as the emotional engine for the final confrontation. The technique is conventional. The trick is that the film earns the death by establishing the relationship in the time the structure allows. The audience cares about T.K. because Gugino plays her as a complete person rather than as a wife function. The lesson for writers is that fridge stuffing only works if you treat the character whose death you need before you kill them. If your stakes-establishing death happens to a character the audience has not invested in, the death generates no stakes. If your stakes-establishing death happens to a character the audience has come to like, the death generates the engine the third act needs. The One does this efficiently. Other action films of the period did not.
The Fight Choreography
The action sequences in The One use techniques drawn from both Hong Kong wire-fu and Hollywood action choreography. The fight sequences feature elements that exceed conventional human capability without going fully into superhero territory. Yulaw and Gabe move at speeds that mortals cannot match. They lift objects that mortals cannot lift. They survive impacts that mortals cannot survive.
The final fight between Yulaw and Gabe is the film’s signature sequence. The two physically identical fighters battle in a power station while each demonstrates the physical and martial capability that 124 dead alternates have given them. The choreography requires both versions of Jet Li to perform at the same superhuman level while remaining distinguishable through small physical cues. The sequence pays off the dual performance work that the entire film has been setting up.
The choreography was supervised by Corey Yuen, who had collaborated with Jet Li since Li’s early Hong Kong career. Yuen would also choreograph The Transporter (2002) for Statham. The choreographer’s influence on both careers is significant and deserves more recognition than it has received. The One demonstrates what Yuen could do with high production budget and willing performers.
The Ending
Gabe defeats Yulaw in the final fight and the Multiverse Authority arrests him. The agents take Yulaw to the Hell Universe, a prison universe where lawbreakers are sent. Yulaw discovers that the prison universe operates under high gravity. Every prisoner has to fight constantly to survive. The film closes with Yulaw being thrown into the prison yard and immediately attacked. The audience watches him survive the first wave of attackers and prepare for the next.
Gabe returns to our universe. The Multiverse Authority offers him recruitment because he is now the only surviving alternate, which makes him “The One” by the rules of the mechanic. The agents have decided to harness his capability rather than oppose it. Gabe accepts the recruitment offer at the funeral for T.K. The film closes with him beginning the journey across the universes.
The ending leaves the door open for a sequel that never happened. The setup is clean. Gabe is operating as the most powerful being in the multiverse with institutional backing. Yulaw is alive in a prison universe with motivation to escape. The conflict can be revisited at any point. The sequel did not develop because The One’s commercial performance was disappointing relative to expectations. Sony had hoped for franchise-level returns. The film made approximately $73 million worldwide against an $80 million budget. The math did not support continuation.
Craft: An Underrated Achievement
Craft Note
The One operates at peak across multiple departments. The Jet Li dual performance carries the film. The supporting work from Jason Statham, Carla Gugino, and Delroy Lindo grounds the high concept. The James Wong direction handles the action and dramatic material with consistent professionalism. The Corey Yuen choreography integrates Hong Kong technique with Hollywood production. The parallel universe premise generates dramatic situations through character constraint rather than through world-building.
The release timing buried the film. November 2001 was approximately eight weeks after September 11. American audiences were not in a mood for action films featuring rogue agents and institutional pursuit. The Hollywood action production cycle had been disrupted. The One landed in a market that could not properly evaluate it. The subsequent reevaluation has been slow because the film never had a champion arguing for it.
The 9 rating reflects honest evaluation across multiple viewings. The film holds up because the high-concept premise generates the dramatic situations rather than just providing a backdrop. The action sequences integrate the dual performance work cleanly. The supporting performances are stronger than the contemporary critical reception suggested. The One belongs in any serious conversation about parallel universe action cinema.
The Verdict
A 9. The One is one of the most underrated parallel universe action films ever made. Jet Li in a dual role. Jason Statham in an early American performance. Carla Gugino and Delroy Lindo in supporting roles. James Wong directing. Corey Yuen choreographing. A premise that uses parallel universes for character work rather than for world-building. The film deserves the reconsideration it never quite received.
FAQ
How does the multiverse premise work?
The Multiverse contains 125 parallel universes connected through monitored portals. Travel between universes is regulated. Each universe has its own version of every person. Killing an alternate version of yourself concentrates the dead version’s energy and capability across the remaining selves. The mechanic gives Yulaw his motivation.
How was the Jet Li dual performance accomplished?
A combination of split-screen, body doubles, and motion capture techniques that were ambitious for 2001. Many scenes show both characters in the same frame interacting. The technical work is consistent enough that the audience accepts the doubling without distraction.
Is Jason Statham really in this?
Yes, as Agent Funsch in an early American supporting role. The Transporter (2002) was about a year away. The Funsch role is the transitional moment between his British work and the leading-man action career that followed.
Why did the film underperform commercially?
Release timing. November 2001 was approximately eight weeks after September 11. American audiences were not in a mood for action films featuring rogue agents and institutional pursuit. The Hollywood action market had been disrupted. The One made approximately $73 million worldwide against an $80 million budget.
Was there going to be a sequel?
The ending leaves the door open. Gabe is the new “The One” with Multiverse Authority backing. Yulaw is alive in a prison universe. The sequel did not develop because the commercial performance was disappointing relative to Sony’s franchise expectations.
Who choreographed the fights?
Corey Yuen, who had collaborated with Jet Li since Li’s early Hong Kong career. Yuen would also choreograph The Transporter (2002) for Statham. The choreographer’s influence on both careers is significant and underappreciated.
How does Carla Gugino’s performance work?
Gugino plays T.K. Law, Gabe’s wife. The role is structurally smaller but emotionally central. T.K.’s death is the film’s emotional engine. Gugino establishes the relationship convincingly enough that the audience feels the loss when it comes.
How does this compare to other parallel universe films?
The One uses the premise for character work rather than for world-building. Sliding Doors (1998) and The Family Man (2000) explore alternate paths. The One explores alternate selves. The structural choice is rarer in the parallel-universe subgenre and produces a different kind of drama.
Should I watch this if I have not seen it?
Yes. The film has aged better than its 2001 reception suggested. The Jet Li dual performance is one of his strongest American roles. The Jason Statham appearance is a useful historical artifact. The parallel universe premise generates dramatic situations that the film follows through on with discipline.