This is a weird Valentine’s Day season in terms of what films are being released for the holiday. I recently reviewed Heart Eyes with its Rom-Com/Slasher film mix. Now we have Love Hurts, a film by Jonathan Eusebio starring fan-favorite Ke Huy Quan in a martial arts action comedy love story. In this movie, Quan plays Marvin Gable, a successful and unassuming pleasing Realtor who loves Valentine’s Day. He’s well-liked by his co-workers, even by his bored-with life and sarcastic assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton). Recently, he got an award for his good work from his boss, Cliff (Sean Astin). Marvin’s life couldn’t be any better. That is until his life is turned upside down when Rose, played by Ariana DeBose, re-enters his life, bringing his old life of being a contract killer crashing into his current peaceful one. Rose is supposed to be dead, and Marvin was supposed to kill her. Still, he couldn’t because of love – now Marvin is getting hunted by an array of hitmen to find her and bring him back to his evil brother named Knuckles (not the red Echidna who protects the master emerald) played by Daniel Wu.
So this movie is eighty-three minutes long, not even an hour and a half. This film tells you everything through dialogue exposition; it doesn’t show you and speeds through the story, but the characters are not well drawn at all. Marvin is a nice mix of what we like from Quan and the cosplay of Jackie Chan characters in his Hollywood movies. DeBose is just a femme fatale – she looks great, but the character is even less deep than the ones Robert Rodriguez makes for his Machete and Spy Kids movies. The always great on-screen Marshawn Lynch plays King, and, with his partner, Otis (André Eriksen), brings light to a lot of the movie in the scenes they’re in this comedic duo of killers who work for a man named Merlo (Cam Gigandet). I thought it was spelled like the wine, but sadly, it’s not. These two bring great joy with their interactions with Quan and have one of the best fight set pieces in the whole film. Mustafa Shakir plays a killer named Raven, who uses darts with black feathers and cool knives. He looks like a comic book character from a random Image comics title. Honestly, the whole movie feels like a comic book.
I don’t know if people will think this movie is good or not. Most won’t. I was entertained the entire hour and twenty minutes I watched it. The movie feels like a platform to show off the fight choreography, which is well-shot, edited, and thought out. The shortness of length allows it not to overstay or consider much of the plot holes you’re seeing. While the film wears what it’s borrowing from on its sleeves from other movies, it also reminds us of playing the game Sifu at times as well. Love Hurts isn’t this amazing piece of high cinema, and it’s not trying to be at all. Still, it is filled with entertaining actors giving fun performances and fantastic action work that takes the right amount of time for anyone’s attention span. It is another fun, different movie to check out on Valentine’s Day weekend.
Score: C+
