The One
Directed by James Wong
- action
- science fiction
- thriller
The story
A sheriff's deputy fights an alternate universe version of himself who grows stronger with each alternate self he kills.
What it’s like
Sleek, glossy early-2000s digital action with cool blue-teal grading, hard overhead fluorescents in police stations and sodium-orange streetlight on Los Angeles asphalt, and a lot of rapid, wide-angle motion in its fight scenes. Its vibe is slick, pulpy and restless, a cool, neon-tinged thriller with a sci-fi hum rather than anything meditative. The pacing is brisk and cut-heavy, with a score of driving synth pulses and percussive electronic beats that push each chase forward, and the emotional register stays brisk and genre-bound, following a lawman whose double hunts him across a series of parallel versions of himself. The intensity is high: frequent martial-arts fights with real impact, gunfire, and violent deaths, handled in a stylized rather than gory way, with some brutal moments and a steady undercurrent of menace. It suits a Friday night with the lights off, a martial-arts double feature, or a late-night watch when you want kinetic energy. It is for people who enjoy Jet Li's physical screen presence, multiverse-tinged sci-fi, and fast, glossy genre thrills, not for anyone seeking something gentle or slow.
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