Love Hurts Review
Love Hurts may just be the first Valentine’s Day-themed Hong Kong-style action movie. With the action genre overstuffed with Christmas, this one is a funny and fresh feature, it can’t quite live up to its potential.
What the film does succeed in is being a vehicle to showcase the talents of Ke Huy Quan, in the wake of his Oscar-winning turn as Waymond Wang in 2022’s Everything Everywhere All at Once. Quan is delightful in his first leading role as Marvin Gable, a mild-mannered realtor whose past as a violent hitman comes back to haunt him when an old flame, Rose (Ariana DeBose), comes to town on Valentine’s Day. Quan gets to show off both his charm and action skills as Marvin is thrust back into a world of death and violence after Rose pokes the bear that is Knuckles (Daniel Wu) – Marvin’s brother and former employer – a boba tea-loving crime lord.
Love Hurts is packed full of fun, silly details like that. Heart-shaped cookie cutters repurposed as weapons, an increasingly damaged realtor of the year award, giant teddy bears, lovelorn hit men, death by boba straw. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t quite have as tight a grip on its tone. It’s very difficult to make a film that’s genuinely funny and heartfelt and unfortunately, Love Hurts‘ script and direction are not always up to the task. There are just too many scenes where you’re uncertain if the film is trying to be tongue-in-cheek and failing, or if it’s actually being serious and failing at that too. In particular, a subplot between Marvin’s depressed assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton) and Raven (Mustafa Shakir), a poetry-spouting hitman should have been a slam dunk, but there are just too many scenes that fall flat. This muddled feeling isn’t helped by the film constantly stopping for characters to woodenly explain the plot to each other.
ALSO: READ OUR REVIEW OF COMPANION HERE
Fellow Oscar winner DeBose, too, has boatloads of charisma as femme fatale Rose, but she can’t save the erratic and underwritten character. Like many of the characters in Love Hurts Rose’s actions feel led by the plot rather than any innate truth of the character. It’s also disappointing to see Hollywood continue to cast a female lead nearly twenty years the male lead’s junior, given how rare action roles are for women over fifty.
However, where Love Hurts truly shines is in its fight scenes. This isn’t just an action movie; this is a martial arts action movie. Both Quan and Director Jonathan Eusebio come from stunt backgrounds and both have spoken of being inspired by Hong Kong’s action movies of the eighties – and it shows. The fight scenes are extensive, tightly choreographed, and often funny. Love Hurts is at its absolute best when Marvin gets to show off his ass-kicking skills, and luckily the film offers action aplenty.
The story and characters are simply too patchy for Love Hurts to be a great movie, but it is an enjoyable one. If you’re in the mood for some action this Valentine’s Day or simply want to observe the next chapter in the rising star of Ke Huy Quan – at a sparse 83 minutes – Love Hurts is worth your time.
★★★
In UK cinemas Feb 7th/ Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Marshawn Lynch, Mustafa Shakir, Lio Tipton, Rhys Darby / Dir: Jonathan Eusebio /Universal Picture s/ 15
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