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Dom Robinson reviews
Columbia TriStar
- Cert:
- Cat.no: CDR 32407
- Running time: 84 minutes
- Year: 2001
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 28 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English, French
- Subtitles: 4 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Featurettes: Jet Li is “The One”, Multiverses create “The One”,About Face & The Many Faces of Jet Li, Trailers, Filmographies, AnimaticComparison, Audio Commentary
Director:
- James Wong
(Final Destination, The One, TV: The X-Files)
Producers:
- Steve Chasman, Glen Morgan, Charles Newirth and James Wong
Screenplay:
- Glen Morgan and James Wong
Music:
- Trevor Rabin
Cast:
- Gabe Law/Gabriel Yulaw: Jet Li
T.K. Law/Massie Walsh: Carla Gugino
MVA Agent Harry Roedecker: Delroy Lindo
MVA Agent Evan Funsch: Jason Statham
LAPD Officer Bobby Aldrich: James Morrison
Yates: Dylan Bruno
D’Antoni: Richard Steinmetz
MVA Supervisor: Steve Rankin
The Oneis Jet Li‘s chance to make a film featuring himself in dual roles, justas Jackie Chan did with Twin Dragons, Jean Claude Van Damme did withDouble Impact and no doubt countless others before them. Do two Jet Lismean double the excitement, or just double the Van Damme hell? Sadly, it’sjust about the latter.
Jet Li plays Gabriel Yulaw, the perfect killer with 123 murders so far.He also takes on the roles of all the people he’s killed since they’re lookalikesof himself – that’s the way the parallel universes, or “multiverses”, work inthis film and as he teleports once more he’s confronted with himself in apolice uniform as Gabe Law, a good guy who slowly starts to behave like Yulawon a physical level as the film progresses.
The One plays like a cross betweenThe Matrix,Terminator 2,Six Million Dollar Man and the Highlander.Yulaw dodges bullets and bends reality in mid-air, superhuman-strength is used to punchholes in sheet metal, the baddie behaves just as strong as Lee Majors throughoutand there’s a chant in the final fight of “There can be only one”.
Carla Gugino is the token babe caught up in this mess, but she doesn’t lookanywhere near half as hot as she used to. She also has a dual role, mainly asGabe’s other half, T.K., and also in the original setting as a baddie, but youeither lose track or could care less about her position in the film since bothher characters are such non-events.
The other two leads are Multiverse Agents Roedecker(Broken Arrow‘sDelroy Lindo) and Funsch(Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels‘Jason Statham), the former who always acts the determined character withthat same look across his face and by contrast there’s a dire American accentfrom Statham who sounds like he really can’t be bothered in the vocal dept, oranywhere else in his range this time.
The idea of making himself look the same as his targets has been done to deathmany times and this is just a banal vehicle to push the name of Jet Li furtherinto the US Box Office consciousness. While I can sit through many an actionfilm, I find it rather on the dull side to see action that contains zerooriginality or barely anything to capture my interest.
Jet Li shows what a motorbike can REALLY be used for.
Still, while the film sucks at least how it looks and sounds are withoutquestion.The picture is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio with acolourful and crystal clear look to it, no motion artifacts at all and boldtextures throughout.
The sound comes in Dolby Digital 5.1, is well used for all the action scenesso there’s nothing to worry about for fans of “crash, bang, wallop”, but ifonly there’d been a plot to accompany this.
The extras begin with four featurettes. Jet Li is “The One” (13 mins)mixes film clips with chat from the cast and crew about how wonderful he is, Multiverses create “The One” (19 mins) looks more at the how the actionscenes were put together, About Face (6 mins) concentrates on the ideaof Jet Li fighting himself and The Many Faces of Jet Li (2 mins) shows the actorgetting dressed up for photo shoots for the many characters we see only inpictures early on in the film, as well as the ones he gets to act out as.
Trailers for this film plus four others follow(The 6th Day,A Knight’s Tale,Hollow Man andThe Thirteenth Floor),there are Filmographies for director James Wong and the main fouractors and then comes the Animatic Comparison (1 min) where a film clip iscompared to basic CGI and work with what looks like Lego models(!)
A feature-length audio commentary from the director and several crew memberscloses the extras.
There are 28 chapters to the film, the subtitles are in four languages(English – with extra subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing, French – witha subtitled commentary, Arabic and Columbia’s favourite, Hindi – I say thatbecause no other company seems to bother, although Warner have an affinity for Arabic)and the main menu features chase music and clips from the film.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.