Bullet Points: Love Hurts (2025)
87North tackles another holiday with 2025’s Love Hurts, a Valentine’s Day themed action comedy starring Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose! The first 87North holiday themed actioner was 2022’s Violent Night. With Christmas and Valentine’s Day covered, I wonder if we’ll get a Thanksgiving action comedy next?!
While we are waiting to see if that happens, feel free to check out my Love Hurts review…
- Guess Who’s Back?: Life’s good for Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once). Marvin is one of the premier realtors in the Milwaukee area, a job he seems to genuinely love. After a busy open house, Marvin makes his way to his office where there’s a Valentine’s Day party going on. Office manager, Ashley (Lio Tipton), hands Marvin his mail and that’s when he finds an unexpected Valentine… even more unexpected is the assassin waiting for Marvin in his office! The assassin is a powerhouse of a poet known as The Raven (Mustafa Shakir, Cowboy Bebop)… The Raven is looking for Rose, the same woman who sent the Valentine to Marvin.
- Love is in the Air: Marvin isn’t the only one that Rose sent a Valentine to. Rose (Ariana, DeBose, Kraven the Hunter) also sent one to Marvin’s brother, Alvin “Knuckles” Gable (Daniel Wu). Rose used to be Knuckles’ right hand woman as part of Knuckles’ criminal enterprises. Marvin also worked for his brother, as Knuckles’ personal monster that Knuckles would unleash on his foes. In fact, Knuckles had tasked Marvin with killing the thieving Rose, and made a deal with Marvin, that if he did that… he was free to go legit. So, when Knuckles receives a Valentine from a woman he thought his brother killed for him, he’s not too happy and thus why he has dispatched minions like The Raven and the duo of Otis and King (Marshawn “Beastmode” Lynch) to retrieve Marvin and Rose and bring them to him!
- Kiss From a Rose: The reason Marvin couldn’t bring himself to kill Rose, is because he was in love with her… but Rose was not content with starting a new life, especially since she was framed by the man who ended up becoming Knuckles’ new right hand man, Renny Merlo (Cam Gigandet, Mafia Wars). After Marvin returns home after his office incident with The Raven, he finds himself in a knock down drag out with Otis and King, and fortunately for Marvin, Rose shows up and the two reunite. Now Marvin has to decide if he wants to run from his past or help Rose get her revenge!?!?
As I expected going in, the biggest strength of Love Hurts is the amazing and inventive action sequences and there are plenty of them packed into the 83 minute runtime! Which is another plus for the film, it certainly doesn’t wear out its welcome. And it’s great to see Ke Huy Quan, who like many I first saw way back when in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, enjoying a career resurgence all these decades later.
If you choo-choo-choose to check out Love Hurts this weekend, I would suggest taking the movie at face value… because if you dig too deep on the story portion of the movie, you will also uncover the movie’s flaws.
Love some Bonus Bullet Points?!?! Be my guest, and check these out…
- Missed Opportunity: Love Hurts could have given Ke Huy Quan’s character the best realtor name in action movie history, I’m of course talking about Jerry Pelt.
- Familiar Face: Who is the man who gave Marvin Gable a shot at being a realtor!? That would be Cliff Cusick played by none other than Sean Astin… that’s right folks, Love Hurts has a Goonies reunion!!!
- Bastard Count: There was one “bastard” in Love Hurts, thanks to Renny Merlo!
- I Spy: I couldn’t help but notice the poster for the Shaw Brothers classic, Avenging Eagle, on the wall of the video store portion of Knuckles’ lair. And I am going to take it as a sign for what my next old school Kung Fu review will be.
- If You Ever: …wanted to see a grown up Short Round inside a refrigerator just like his mentor, Dr. Jones, then Love Hurts is the movie for you.
- Soundtraxx: The soundtrack for Love Hurts contains music from Hot Chocolate, Barry White and 10cc.
