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One: SE, The
Columbia/Tri-Star // PG-13 // March 5, 2002
List Price: $27.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
When "The One" was set to be released late last Winter, the film had fairly high expectations for it. The trailers were rather attention-grabbing, director James Wong and writer Glen Morgan had last been seen with the mildly inspired horror film "Final Destination" and, in my opinion, star Jet Li's acting ability has improved moderately over his past few films. The last element would help, since not only would Li be on-screen for the entire film, so would his co-star - himself.
To explain, "The One" takes place in a world that is one of 125 different universes that currently exist. Yulaw (Li) is a multi-universe agent that went rogue after he found that killing another one of the 124 himselves that live in different universes gave him that selve's strength and abilities. He kept going - and now, there's only one other Li character in Yulaw's way, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy named Gabriel. Yet, the power of the others has been equally distributed to him, as well. Meanwhile, agents Roedecker (Delroy Lindo) and Funsch (Jason Statham) are persuing the bad Li character. Much confusion and many special effects follow.
Seriously, as previously noted, there are a lot of interesting possibilities that "The One" could have covered. Instead, the film seems rushed - more interested in special effects and fight scenes than characters. While I'm not looking for exceptional character development in this kind of picture, "The One" doesn't exactly have a great plot to fall back on, nor interesting dialogue. It's essentially like watching a video game. At 87 minutes for the entirity (deduct a few for credits), there's really hardly any time to fill-out many ideas or characters - or explain away questionable plot logic. Delroy Lindo, Jason Statham and Carla Gugino (all fine actors) have supporting roles that feel as if a good portion of their scenes ended up on the editing room floor.
As for the fight scenes, I would guess that most of the film's reported 60 million budget went to providing the special effects - as seen in the trailer, "The One" uses many visual effects to enhance the fight scenes that are similar to those made popular by "The Matrix". While this is exciting on occasion, "The One" isn't nearly as creative in staging fight scenes as some of Li's early "non-FX" martial arts films were. In those films (and, to some extent, Li's "Kiss of the Dragon", from last Summer), the choreography is often absolutely breathtaking - and they amaze without the aid of computer effects.
Tech credits are about as good as one might expect. Robert McLachlan's cinematography is slick and glossy, production designer David L. Snyder's work is very solid and Harry Cohen's sound design is agressive and enveloping. In other words, "The One" usually looks impressive, but more work should have been devoted to developing the plot and making the film more than simply fight scenes that start off as somewhat exciting and then become repetitive.
Interesting side note: WWF star The Rock was originally slated to star instead of Li.
The DVD
VIDEO: "The One" is presented by Columbia/Tristar Home Video in both 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and 1.33:1 pan & scan formats. Of course, the widescreen version is the prefered viewing experience and the one that I will discuss here. While not without a few very minor problems here and there, the presentation was impressive. Sharpness and detail were perfect, as the picture took on an impressive, "film-like" look throughout, with no softness whatsoever.
Flaws were noticable, but generally remained minor and were not particularly distracting. Slight edge enhancement was apparent during a few scenes, as was a few minor instances of grain. The print otherwise seemed to be in crystal clear condition, with seemingly no marks, specks or scratches to be seen. Pixelation was also absent.
Colors also looked superb throughout. Most of the film took on a steely blue tone, but other more vibrant or warm colors were occasionally seen. Either way, colors looked accurate, with no smearing. Overall, one of the strongest recent presentations that I've seen from the studio.
SOUND: "The One" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. As one might expect, the sci-fi actioner does provide surround-sound that's almost constantly active and occasionally, quite agressive. Given the minimal amount of dialogue throughout the movie, most of the focus is given to either the metal score or the sound effects. Not that I have anything against the genre, but there were moments throughout the film that the heavy metal music didn't entirely fit with the scenes and was loud enough to be rather distracting. Otherwise, audio quality remained solid, as the sound effects were crisp and clean sounding and dialogue came through clearly. As one would expect from this sort of movie, several scenes provide strong bass.
MENUS: Highly animated (but slightly less-than-easy to navigate) main menu. Sub-menus have the metal score in the background.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: This is a commentary from director James Wong, production designer David Snyder, editor Jim Coblentz and cinematographer Robert McLachlan. It's a fairly low-key commentary - there are hints of interesting information here and there, but some slow patches also are found at various points. Some of the more interesting topics covered were how the filmmakers attempted to take the film from an R to a PG-13, the special effects, the locations and the look of the feature. A decent track and those interested in the film may want to take a listen, but I don't think it'll have much repeat-listen value.
Featurettes; "About Face", "Jet Li Is "The One" and "Multiverses Create "The One" are three featurettes that last several minutes each. "About Face", a featurette about how Li was able to fight Li on-screen, is the most interesting of the three.
Trailer: The film's theatrical trailer, in Dolby Digital 5.1.
Also: A very short featurette on creating all the different characters, production notes, cast/crew filmographies and anamatic (visual storyboard) split-screen comparison for the motorcycle sequence.
Final Thoughts: "The One" had potential to be entertaining and interesting, but, aside from a few action scenes and a good dual performance from Jet Li, there's hardly anything to the film, which is quite forgettable. Those interested might find Li's recent "Kiss of the Dragon" or the star's earlier films more entertaining. Still, for those who enjoyed this movie, Columbia/Tristar's DVD provides superb audio/video quality and a few fine extras.
When "The One" was set to be released late last Winter, the film had fairly high expectations for it. The trailers were rather attention-grabbing, director James Wong and writer Glen Morgan had last been seen with the mildly inspired horror film "Final Destination" and, in my opinion, star Jet Li's acting ability has improved moderately over his past few films. The last element would help, since not only would Li be on-screen for the entire film, so would his co-star - himself.
To explain, "The One" takes place in a world that is one of 125 different universes that currently exist. Yulaw (Li) is a multi-universe agent that went rogue after he found that killing another one of the 124 himselves that live in different universes gave him that selve's strength and abilities. He kept going - and now, there's only one other Li character in Yulaw's way, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy named Gabriel. Yet, the power of the others has been equally distributed to him, as well. Meanwhile, agents Roedecker (Delroy Lindo) and Funsch (Jason Statham) are persuing the bad Li character. Much confusion and many special effects follow.
Seriously, as previously noted, there are a lot of interesting possibilities that "The One" could have covered. Instead, the film seems rushed - more interested in special effects and fight scenes than characters. While I'm not looking for exceptional character development in this kind of picture, "The One" doesn't exactly have a great plot to fall back on, nor interesting dialogue. It's essentially like watching a video game. At 87 minutes for the entirity (deduct a few for credits), there's really hardly any time to fill-out many ideas or characters - or explain away questionable plot logic. Delroy Lindo, Jason Statham and Carla Gugino (all fine actors) have supporting roles that feel as if a good portion of their scenes ended up on the editing room floor.
As for the fight scenes, I would guess that most of the film's reported 60 million budget went to providing the special effects - as seen in the trailer, "The One" uses many visual effects to enhance the fight scenes that are similar to those made popular by "The Matrix". While this is exciting on occasion, "The One" isn't nearly as creative in staging fight scenes as some of Li's early "non-FX" martial arts films were. In those films (and, to some extent, Li's "Kiss of the Dragon", from last Summer), the choreography is often absolutely breathtaking - and they amaze without the aid of computer effects.
Tech credits are about as good as one might expect. Robert McLachlan's cinematography is slick and glossy, production designer David L. Snyder's work is very solid and Harry Cohen's sound design is agressive and enveloping. In other words, "The One" usually looks impressive, but more work should have been devoted to developing the plot and making the film more than simply fight scenes that start off as somewhat exciting and then become repetitive.
Interesting side note: WWF star The Rock was originally slated to star instead of Li.
The DVD
VIDEO: "The One" is presented by Columbia/Tristar Home Video in both 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and 1.33:1 pan & scan formats. Of course, the widescreen version is the prefered viewing experience and the one that I will discuss here. While not without a few very minor problems here and there, the presentation was impressive. Sharpness and detail were perfect, as the picture took on an impressive, "film-like" look throughout, with no softness whatsoever.
Flaws were noticable, but generally remained minor and were not particularly distracting. Slight edge enhancement was apparent during a few scenes, as was a few minor instances of grain. The print otherwise seemed to be in crystal clear condition, with seemingly no marks, specks or scratches to be seen. Pixelation was also absent.
Colors also looked superb throughout. Most of the film took on a steely blue tone, but other more vibrant or warm colors were occasionally seen. Either way, colors looked accurate, with no smearing. Overall, one of the strongest recent presentations that I've seen from the studio.
SOUND: "The One" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. As one might expect, the sci-fi actioner does provide surround-sound that's almost constantly active and occasionally, quite agressive. Given the minimal amount of dialogue throughout the movie, most of the focus is given to either the metal score or the sound effects. Not that I have anything against the genre, but there were moments throughout the film that the heavy metal music didn't entirely fit with the scenes and was loud enough to be rather distracting. Otherwise, audio quality remained solid, as the sound effects were crisp and clean sounding and dialogue came through clearly. As one would expect from this sort of movie, several scenes provide strong bass.
MENUS: Highly animated (but slightly less-than-easy to navigate) main menu. Sub-menus have the metal score in the background.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: This is a commentary from director James Wong, production designer David Snyder, editor Jim Coblentz and cinematographer Robert McLachlan. It's a fairly low-key commentary - there are hints of interesting information here and there, but some slow patches also are found at various points. Some of the more interesting topics covered were how the filmmakers attempted to take the film from an R to a PG-13, the special effects, the locations and the look of the feature. A decent track and those interested in the film may want to take a listen, but I don't think it'll have much repeat-listen value.
Featurettes; "About Face", "Jet Li Is "The One" and "Multiverses Create "The One" are three featurettes that last several minutes each. "About Face", a featurette about how Li was able to fight Li on-screen, is the most interesting of the three.
Trailer: The film's theatrical trailer, in Dolby Digital 5.1.
Also: A very short featurette on creating all the different characters, production notes, cast/crew filmographies and anamatic (visual storyboard) split-screen comparison for the motorcycle sequence.
Final Thoughts: "The One" had potential to be entertaining and interesting, but, aside from a few action scenes and a good dual performance from Jet Li, there's hardly anything to the film, which is quite forgettable. Those interested might find Li's recent "Kiss of the Dragon" or the star's earlier films more entertaining. Still, for those who enjoyed this movie, Columbia/Tristar's DVD provides superb audio/video quality and a few fine extras.
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