The One (movie)
- Awesome Music: Papa Roach, Drowning Pool and Disturbed provided most of the soundtrack. With Trevor Rabin providing the underscore. Not the first time he's scored a movie with the star in multiple roles.
- Complete Monster: Gabriel Yulaw is a sociopathic interdimensional criminal with a God complex. Originally an officer of the Multiverse Authority, Yulaw discovered that, by killing his alternate selves, he would gain their life energies and essence. Yulaw then set about across dozens of parallel universes, killing all of his alternate selves in an effort to become "the One," a being of godlike power. Having already succeeded in killing 123 of his targets, Yulaw was briefly detained, but broke free, murdering several guards before teleporting himself to the universe of his final target, Gabe Law. Upon arriving, Yulaw went on a killing spree, killing several police officers as he sought out Gabe to kill him. When his former ally, Harry Rodecker, arrived to stop him, Yulaw delivered a brutal beatdown upon his former friend, ultimately killing him. He then proceeded to gun down Gabe's wife, making sure that Gabe was watching while he did so. After his final showdown with Gabe ended with the two of them being transported back to MVA headquarters, Yulaw attempted to frame Gabe for his crimes. Arrogant and sadistic, Yulaw lived for nothing more than power and his own egomania.
- Evil Is Cool: Jet Li as Gabriel Yulaw is easily the most badass part of the film, between his cool outfits, epic lines, nightmarish murders, and great fighting skills.
- He Really Can Act: Gabe Law is kind of a par-for-the-course role for Jet Li, but he also knocks it out of the park as Yulaw which is a far less common character type for him to attempt.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- A brief news clip has George W. Bush approving universal healthcare to a standing ovation from the Senate, so as to demonstrate that universe is not ours. Bush's successor Barack Obama would end up approving a healthcare plan (known as "Obamacare") considered to be a (admittedly small) step towards that.
- Ke Huy Quan worked on this movie as an assistant director for the fight choreography. While his involvement is admittedly small enough to have been uncredited, it's still amusing to know this when two decades later, he'd have a major starring role in yet another (and more critically acclaimed) Asian-led martial arts movie about the multiverse.
- Just Here for Godzilla: Most likely, you're either here to see Jet Li fight Jet Li, or just here for Yulaw being a badass.
- Moral Event Horizon: If Yulaw didn't cross it by killing 123 of his alternate selves or by murdering his former friend Roedecker, he absolutely crossed it when he murders of Gabe's wife TK.
- Narm Charm: Yulaw's Badass Boast at the end of the film
is rather cheesy but Jet Li manages to sell it as incredibly awesome.I am Yulaw! I am nobody's bitch! You are mine. I don't need to know you. You only need to know me. I will be The One! - Special Effect Failure: Some of the movie's green-screening effects were unimpressive.
- Unintentional Period Piece: The soundtrack to the movie is very early 2000's, with songs such as "Bodies" and "Down with the Sickness".
- Values Resonance: A good decade before concerns about Asian-American representation became a topic of discussion across media, Gabe Law is quite ahead of his time. Jet Li's leading man is a respected police officer in an ethnically diverse department, and has a stable interracial marriage that combines aspects of Chinese and American culture.
The One (manhua)
- Values Dissonance: The portrayal of canonically bisexual characters like Lele's father and Luo definitely falls under this, particularly because they are never called or labeled as bisexual by any character in the series; they are either discussed as being "formerly gay" or similarly mocked for their same sex romantic interests (e.g. "a sister", "a queen"). Luo in particular suffers from this, which has its own bucket of Unfortunate Implications relating to In Touch with His Feminine Side because of how Camp Gay he is depicted as being.
The One (TV series)
- Fridge Logic: As described in the show, all a match really guarantees is powerful mutual attraction. As generally imagined, a soulmate is more than powerful attraction; it's someone you can build a life with, someone who will challenge you and make you grow. For that, it'd be pretty important to consider cultural factors—something you can't tell from a person's genes (ie. I won't date someone who uses heroine, or has radically different politics than I do, or one of us wants kids while the other doesn't). This is largely absent from the show. This could be considered a Plot Hole, or Hand Wave. Or, it might actually make sense: All we know for sure is that matches are people whose pheromones jive. We know nothing about the long-term outcomes for such couples, because—in-universe—this technology hasn't even existed for 2 full years yet. Real-world science usually puts the shelf-life of passion at 3 or 4 years. It would be entirely in-character for Rebecca is she stumbled upon this genetic feature, and then projected the vastness of the cultural ideal of soulmates onto it, without having any real evidence that there's anything more than compatible pheromones going on here.
