The One (2001)

The premise

Gabriel Yulaw (Jet Li) is a rogue agent who, in Wikipedia's words, "travels to parallel realities in order to kill other versions of himself to become a mythical super-being known as 'The One.'" Every kill makes him stronger. The last version left standing is Gabe Law (also Jet Li), a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff with a wife, T.K. (Carla Gugino), who works as a vet.

On Yulaw's trail are two agents of the MVA, the MultiVerse Authority, as Wikipedia names the body that polices travel between universes. Harry Roedecker (Delroy Lindo) is Yulaw's former partner, and Evan Funsch (Jason Statham) is Roedecker's. Gabe, meanwhile, has to work out why a man with his face wants him dead.

How it handles time

There's no clock in this story at all; the travel runs between universes, never into the past or future. The multiverse is the classic kind. Robert Koehler of Variety summed it up: each human being "lives out separate but parallel lives in the various spheres." The film explains this in its opening minutes, and Koehler was unimpressed by "a leaden voiceover track and onscreen graphics."

How many universes are there? The sources don't agree. Roger Ebert's review assumes "there are 124 universes," and Koehler calls the number of Yulaw's other selves "equal, apparently, though never explained, to the number of universes in the entire system." Wikipedia instead counts the versions he hunts. What matters on screen is that Yulaw has worked his way through more than a hundred versions of himself, and Gabe is the last one left.

The central rule is the film's best idea. Ebert lays it out: "every time one of your other selves dies, his power is distributed among the survivors." So Yulaw gets faster and stronger with each kill. Wikipedia is careful to say Yulaw "believes" this will make him a godlike being; whether it would is left open. The opening narration raises the stakes further, warning, as Ebert quotes it, that "a force exists who seeks to destroy the balance so that he can become–The One!"

Travel itself is a policing problem. JoBlo's retrospective explains that people cross through "a random wormhole that opens up, but these wormholes can be tracked, just like the weather," and that the travel is "restricted and ... policed by a special group of law enforcement." Koehler mentions "James Bond-style gizmos," and that's as deep as the engineering goes.

The fights carry the theme better than the dialogue does. According to Li's book Beyond Life and Death and the DVD documentary Jet Li Is 'The One', as cited by Wikipedia, Yulaw fights in Xingyiquan, with "aggressive linear movements," and Gabe in Baguazhang, with "subtle, circular movements." Two versions of the same man, built from opposite styles: that's a smarter piece of world-building than anything the script says out loud. Ebert's own objection still stands, though. He asked why, if there are 124 universes, "would you want to kill off the other 123 versions of you?"

What works

Li is the whole show, and the dual role gives him something to play. Variety promised "a climactic battle between martial arts superstar Jet Li and … Jet Li, playing his good and bad selves," and the film delivers that, with Corey Yuen choreographing the action. It was Li's fourth English-language film, according to JoBlo, and the part was originally meant for Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson before Li took the lead, per Wikipedia.

The creative team knew genre television. James Wong and Glen Morgan had worked on The X-Files, and Koehler called them "vets of small-screen sci-fi." Lindo, JoBlo notes, had already worked with Li on Romeo Must Die. A few critics were won over. Loren King of the Chicago Tribune gave it three stars out of four, and Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praised it as "a fun, inventive, mischievously tongue-in-cheek showcase" (both as quoted by Wikipedia).

It's also short. At 87 minutes, it doesn't overstay the welcome its premise earns. Wikipedia notes that some modern commentators now classify it as a cult classic within Li's Hollywood work, because of its martial arts scenes; JoBlo, by contrast, writes that it "doesn't have a notable following."

What doesn't

Most critics hated it, and their main complaint is mine. As of October 18, 2026, Rotten Tomatoes shows 13 percent from 89 reviews, with a consensus that it "plays more like a video game than a movie" and buries "Jet Li's spectacular talents under heaps of editing and special effects." Metacritic gives it 25 from 21 critics.

Ebert, who gave it 1.5 out of 4 stars, put it most simply: "The possibilities with this plot are endless. Alas, the movie is interested only in fight scenes." Koehler was harsher, writing that Wong and Morgan "waste all their resources on a singularly dumb and remarkably boring chopsocky storyline," and that the effects and Yuen's staging produce "something that's martial artless." I don't go that far on the action. I do agree the script never asks a single interesting question about what it means to meet yourself.

The money was middling too. Against a $49 million budget, it made about $44 million in the US and Canada and $72.7 million worldwide on its original release.

Final score

Overall: 4/10. Li's double act and two well-chosen fighting styles give it a few strong scenes, but a multiverse full of possibilities shrinks into a short chase picture.

Paradox Meter: 3/5. One clear rule (kill a version, share its power), tracked wormholes, and a count nobody explains; nothing contradicts itself, because the film barely tests its own ideas.

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