Ke Huy Quan may have been in the entertainment industry for over 40 years since making his memorable debut as a child actor in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Goonies in the following year. His acting career didn’t take off as expected, leading him to shift into working behind the scenes, notably as a stunt choreographer in X-Men and The One.
Then along came the eventual Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once, which marked his significant return to acting, and the rest, as they say, is history. Fortune certainly favors the bold, for such persons as Ke Huy Quan, whose acting comeback finally granted him with a rare leading role in Love Hurts.
Made under the 87North Productions banner with David Leitch serving as one of the co-producers, the movie allows Quan to flex his acting muscles and martial arts skills, showcasing the 53-year-old actor’s impressive agility in his physically demanding performance. He has that likable personality from the moment his Marvin Gable character appears all happy and jovial, where he is looking forward to a great day ahead. He made a successful career as a realtor who runs a company and treats his employees well (i.e. handling them a piece of heart-shaped pink cookie that he personally baked at home).
When his assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton) hands him over a stack of envelopes, one of which has Marvin becomes speechless after seeing the handwritten message. Apparently, his past which he has already buried and forgotten about all this while is coming back to haunt him. And before he even gets to the bottom of the situation, a hitman nicknamed The Raven (Mustafa Shakir) is already in his office waiting to take his life.
The earlier parts of the movie look like it’s on the right track as Jonathan Eusebio, a stunt coordinator and second-unit director for movies like Violent Night and The Fall Guy who made his directorial debut, shows plenty of promises here. Working from Matthew Murray, Josh Stoddard and Luke Passmore’s screenplay, he effectively combines briskly-paced comedy and action with Ke Huy Quan’s charming performance in the center.
It doesn’t take long before Quan engages in his first fight which reminds me of the prime Jackie Chan’s acrobatic kung fu moves against The Raven, where the latter’s weapons of choice including throwing knives and darts with feathered flights kept inside his trench coat. The fight is both visceral and thrilling with Eusebio’s dynamic, yet fluid camerawork doing a terrific job capturing the elaborate choreography and intensity of their moves.
He keeps the momentum going with the subsequent scene revolving around Quan dealing with a pair of bumbling hitmen played by Marshawn “Beastmode” Lynch and André Eriksen in an exhilarating home kitchen fight. Amidst all the bone-crunching mayhem with everyday items crushing and shattering, it’s worth noting that Eusebio manages to find ingenious ways for his camera placements. At one point, a series of slapstick-like action-packed moments sees Quan’s Marvin trying to save his framed certificate of recognition for being the realtor of the year from damage (the POV shot of a rotating plate in a microwave oven comes to mind).
For a while there, everything looks promising and all until the story starts to explain things. Like how it all leads to the hitmen being tasked to kill Marvin. This is where the heavy exposition bogs down the otherwise fast-paced story once Ariana DeBose’s Rose character is introduced. We learn that Marvin and Rose used to know each other but she does something bad which has to do with the stolen money, resulting in Marvin’s brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu) making sure she’s dead. The Marvin of the past turns out to be a ruthless hitman working for his brother but instead of fulfilling his task like he is supposed to, Rose is still alive.
And now she’s back to warn him about Knuckles sending his men and Marvin’s well-disguised cover is blown. The pace becomes uneven during the sluggish second act, making me wonder if Eusebio is running out of steam. The story even grows convoluted, complete with its erratic tones trying to blend the action-comedy tropes with rom-com and drama. This, in turn, makes the movie’s could-have-been-lean 83 minutes feel like a tedious slog to sit through.
Thankfully, Love Hurts manages to pick up its pace in the third act with Marvin finally had enough and reverts to his old ways as he faces Knuckles and his men. On the acting front, apart from Ke Huy Quan, the movie benefits from some of the co-stars including Daniel Wu’s scenery-chewing antagonist turn as the boba tea-loving Knuckles and Sean Astin, who used to co-star with Quan in The Goonies, who plays a small role as the righteous realtor-mentor, Cliff Cussick. The chemistry between Quan and the otherwise stunning DeBose doesn’t work out as well as I thought, especially given the latter’s self-centered character who only brings mostly trouble to Marvin throughout the movie.
