The One

The One. Hard Eight Pictures 2001.

Before watching the movie:

From the first time I heard about this movie, I was vaguely interested in the reality-hopping concept, but I wasn’t into martial arts movies and so I wasn’t all that attracted to it. What I know about the movie hasn’t really changed, I’m mostly just warmer to Kung fu films in general, and also I’m a little more aware of Jet Li’s work.

Apparently the movie was originally meant for Dwayne Johnson, who would’ve been very different, but I also would’ve been less familiar with 20 years ago.

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The Forbidden Kingdom

Before watching the movie:

The Forbidden Kingdom.
Relativity Media 2008.

I barely remember this being a thing when it came out. Maybe martial arts movies were especially common at the time, but they never interested me much, and I completely ignored whatever I might have seen advertising this movie.

I was so ignorant about it that, no doubt thanks to how hyped up the Jackie Chan and Jet Li pairing is, when I saw the description saying that a modern-day martial arts movie fan gets stuck in ancient China to have adventures, I wondered which of them would be the modern-day character with no direct fighting experience, which is a silly question because that would be a comedy slapstick fish out of water role that Jackie Chan would be attracted to like a magnet. However, they’re both masters of ancient China and the modern-day protagonist is a white American the domestic marketing doesn’t seem to want you to know about. I feel like this poster comes closer to telling the story I’m now prepared to see, but it’s not in English, so I didn’t use it.

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