Jet Li And Jason Statham's Forgotten Sci-Fi Action Movie Is Free To Stream

Once Keanu Reeves and pals had been seen dodging bullets and running around walls, everyone wanted to see more movies bending the laws of physics. A forgotten entry that felt like a byproduct of the Wachowskis' wild entry was "The One," starring Jet Li and Jason Statham, and it's now free to stream on Tubi. The movie was directed by James Wong, who at this point had made a career out of writing episodes of "The X-Files," and co-wrote the tale with another scribe of Mulder and Scully's adventures, Glen Morgan.

Settling somewhere between a cult classic fantasy movie, "Highlander," and dimension-jumping television show, "Sliders," "The One" saw Li playing dual roles as the movie's hero and villain. You're first introduced to Gabriel Yulaw, an ex-agent of the MultiVerse Authority (MVA), which manages interdimensional travel. Yulaw learns that by killing other versions of himself, he'll become stronger, thereby embarking on a homicidal mission to try and become "The One."

Additionally, Li also plays Gabe Law, Yulaw's last remaining doppelgänger and a Los Angeles cop who has noticed a change in his own abilities, setting the two up for a fight to the death, all while Statham's multiversal lawman, Evan Funsch, is trying to keep things in order. Unfortunately, among the handful of collaborations Statham and Li have done over the years, "The One" is arguably one of their worst ventures, though it does feature some stars and story beats that would be better applied elsewhere in later years.

Even with the added star power of "Sinners" hero, Delroy Lindo, "The One" earned a woeful 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, torn to shreds upon release for shamelessly taking a lot of elements from other sci-fi movies, particularly ones that married kung-fu with spoon-bending affairs. While it was great to see a pair of Jet Li's and a young Statham getting thrown around in inventive ways, "The Matrix" was still fresh in audiences' minds, along with other sci-fi movies of that era.

Jonathan Foreman of the New York Post (via Rotten Tomatoes) wrote that "this sci-fi/martial arts hybrid has the stale aura of a product assembled out of bits of other action movies." Desson Thomson of The Washington Post said even the extra star power wasn't enough, adding that "I guess you would call this a twin Jet movie that doesn't quite take off."

Other critics called the film out for shamelessly snatching from the Wachowskis' groundbreaker, with Stephen Hunter, also from The Washington Post deeming it "A chaotic kung fu, sci-fi, rama-lama-dingdong on themes handled more originally by 'The Matrix.'" What's perhaps bitterly ironic about these comparisons, however, is that there was a time when Li himself came close to starring alongside Reeves and company a few years later in "The Matrix Reloaded," if only the matter of intellectual property and his own identity had been handled with a little more care by those who were desperate to get it in their movie.

In another timeline, "The Matrix" franchise could've looked very different, where Will Smith might not have made one of his dumbest career choices (besides that one) and taken the role of Neo, Sean Connery played the Architect, and Jet Li played the guardian of the Oracle, Seraph. During the development of the second chapter of the franchise, "The Matrix Reloaded," the Wachowskis offered the role to Michelle Yeoh, who had to decline due to scheduling conflicts. From there, they turned to Li, who had issues with both the production schedule and the high demand that would come with the casting.

"It was a commercial struggle for me. I realized the Americans wanted me to film for three months but be with the crew for nine. And for six months, they wanted to record and copy all my moves into a digital library," Li recalled to news anchor Chen Luyu (via IndieWire). "By the end of the recording, the right to these moves would go to them ... I was thinking: I've been training my entire life. And we martial artists could only grow older. Yet they could own [my moves] as intellectual property forever. So I said I couldn't do that."

Perhaps, if a different creative route had been taken, Li might've ventured into The Matrix instead of the final choice being Collin Chou. It also might've stopped Li from ending up in a sub-standard knockoff and, to be quite honest, more of a number two than anything.