LOVE HURTS is a trifle, a truffle, a little treat meant to be devoured quickly and forgotten. But that’s much better than I’d heard (one critic called it “nearly unwatchable,” I remember), so I feel kinda guilty that I listened to the conventional wisdom and skipped it in theaters. Ke Huy Quan got his 87North-produced action vehicle, an even greater honor than his Academy Award if you ask me, and I waited for video. For that I apologize.

Quan (BREATHING FIRE) stars as Marvin Gable, a corny realtor who rides his bike to work, toting the heart-shaped cookies he baked for Valentine’s Day, and spreads joy like his name was Ke Huy Quan, so his co-workers would never guess that he was once a brutal and feared assassin. But some old associates and other dangerous people come crashing through his comfortable suburban life when a woman he was supposed to have killed resurfaces to leave them all taunting love notes.

Her name is Rose, played by Quan’s fellow Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose (WEST SIDE STORY). She was a lawyer who supposedly stole from Marvin’s crime boss brother Knuckles (Daniel Wu, NAKED WEAPON, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS, GEOSTORM, TOMB RAIDER) and Marvin agreed to kill her in exchange for being allowed to start a new life. (Yes, like John Wick.) But he loved her so he let her go with a promise to never return (a promise that has now been broken).

When Knuckles finds out Rose is alive he sends his goons after Marvin. First is an anime-character-looking poetry and knife lover called The Raven (Mustafa Shakir, BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99), who he battles during a party at the office, unseen behind smoked glass. At home he gets jumped by King (former Seattle Seahawk Marshawn Lynch, BOTTOMS) and Otis (Norwegian rapper André Eriksen, VIOLENT NIGHT), sent by Knuckles’ right hand man Merlo (Cam Gigandet, NEVER BACK DOWN).

Wu plays Knuckles with real menace, though it is funny that every time he drinks his favorite boba tea he seems surprised by how delicious he finds it. His home base is LKP Import & Export, which is stocked with Mortal Kombat II, the world’s most beautiful Chinatown video store, many huge Shaw Brothers posters and of course the bar where he gets the boba. It’s very smart production design (by Craig Sandells, Chucky) because it’s a nice place to hang out throughout the movie and then they get to wreck it in a huge fight at the end. (See also: the video store in THE BIG HIT.)

Meanwhile, Rose seems to own a burlesque club called the Foxhole Roadhouse where she tends bar? That place gets spared, though.

Yeah, this underground-of-colorful-hitmen genre has been overdone, especially the jokey version of it (ACCIDENT MAN, SMOKIN’ ACES, THE BIG HIT again, etc.), but LOVE HURTS flies by so fast it doesn’t have time to seem too proud of itself, and the famously huggable leading man stands out from other versions of this type of character. The only one who wears a sweater because it looks natural rather than because it looks funny. The script, credited to Matthew Murray & Josh Stoddard (Into the Badlands) and Luke Passmore (ARCHENEMY) seems catered to Quan’s sentimentality and sincerity in a way that would come off as a joke if it was almost anybody else starring. Sean Astin (TOY SOLDIERS) plays Marvin’s best friend and real estate mentor Cliff, and mercifully they don’t do any dumb THE GOONIES references. They do have Cliff saying “Man, you’ve come a long way. I’m proud of you,” and you know he means that, so it’s a much more charming type of meta business.

The central appeal of the movie is exactly as promised: Quan playing a dorky sweetheart pushed into a series of far-above-the-Hollywood-standard-of-quality fight scenes. The stunt coordinator/second unit director is Can Aydin and the fight coordinator is Phong Giang, both of Real Deal Stunts. They worked on CLOUD ATLAS, SKYLINES, THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS, and Seagal’s ATTRITION, and here they’re cut by the great editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir (JOHN WICK, ATOMIC BLONDE, THE FALL GUY). They have fun with Quan’s size, delighting in having him tossed over tables, through furniture and across rooms, or having him nimbly hop on top of counters and desks. The carefully manicured residential setting is a good backdrop for explosions of chaos, the geography and props established during peace time before brand new homes are smashed, smeared with blood and riddled with bullet holes. During a particularly destructive battle Marvin promises the buyers that his guys will be able to come in and fix all this.

The choreography is full of character and story detail, like when he slips on a laptop and accidentally knocks The Raven’s head hard against a table, but kicks a pillow under his head to cushion his fall, or the entire fight built around his attempt to prevent his Regional Realtor of the Year certificate from getting damaged. Also they’re always looking for good gimmicks, like using a staple puller, a pencil (which he sharpens first), a scarf, a sparkling water can, or a sink hose as a weapon. Also, of course, guns, knives, darts, tasers, and a meaningful baseball bat. But the highlight is Knuckles’ deadly boba straw.

One of the fights happens while Barry White’s “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything” is playing on a jukebox. Okay, yeah, violence set to upbeat music is an old joke, but I love that song and especially those parts where it goes silent for a beat, as if time freezes for a moment, and then there’s a drum kick and we’re back into the groove.

So when Rose fired a shotgun right on that kick I swooned. Then later I went back and rewatched it several times. I can’t hate a movie that pulled that off.

Director Jonathan Eusebio is a founding member of 87eleven Action Design, so he worked on the JOHN WICKs and was second unit director for DEADPOOL 2, BIRDS OF PREY, KATE and VIOLENT NIGHT. This is his debut as director, and personally I think he shows promise. I thought it was funny (definitely more effective in that respect than some of David Leitch’s movies or J.J. Perry’s similarly themed THE KILLER’S GAME), I liked the energetic-but-not-spastic movements of the camera, and the imaginative gimmicks like shooting from inside a microwave and a refrigerator that become involved in the fight.

(Director of photography: Bridger Nielson, second unit d.p. for THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN). Going back through it as I worked on this review I started to think the way it’s shot (and the way one character gets shot) have just a little bit of a Sam Raimi kind of energy. And that’s something the world needs.

I also like the counterintuitive mix of Quan’s adorable positivity and the mean streak in the movie’s humor. One example is his real estate rival (Drew Scott from whatever Property Brothers is) who does martial arts poses on his signs and makes a big deal about being a black belt (including driving a yellow Corvette with the license plate BLK BLT). We’re so ready for him to be an asshole and a phony (SPOILER) but when he finally appears he’s a nice guy who sees Marvin in trouble and tries to use his skills to help. And immediately suffers a horrible death! Another good one is when kids on a swing set witness Rose dropping two men unconscious on the sidewalk. Instead of a Peckinpah moment of children being corrupted by seeing violence they just laugh, and she does a funny little bow for them.

In a flashback we see how different Marvin and Rose were back in the day, and I have two notes about that.

1. He really did look handsome with a mustache, and

2. It’s funny that she dressed up like a member of The Revolution for her execution. I mean why not, if you know you look good?

Marvin has to unleash his inner monster to defeat his brother and save Rose. When shit gets real serious he not only removes his Clark Kent glasses, but crumbles them in his fist like a potato chip. I was hoping then he’d spontaneously sprout the mustache, but we can’t have everything.

It amused me how big a deal the movie makes out of Valentine’s Day. Are there really office Valentine’s Day parties? But I like the story’s love motif: Marvin’s depressed assistant Ashley (Lio Tipton, the evil cult lady from RIDDLE OF FIRE!) falling for The Raven after reading from his poetry book, King counseling Otis to be emotionally vulnerable and open with his wife, and of course Marvin risking everything – twice – for Rose. I was impressed that they let her be a bad girl, framed and misunderstood but joyful when committing violence, strutting around in her leopard print coat, giving ain’t I a stinker smiles.

She says in narration that she’s trying to save Marvin, but she initially kidnaps him and reveals she has Knuckles’ accountant Kippy (Rhys Darby, HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE) in her trunk, having already cut one of his fingers off. She’s no angel, the newspapers would say.

So I don’t know if she’s gonna be an agent of stability in Marvin’s life, but I definitely get him falling for her. I read some reviews that said they had no chemistry; I know in real life DeBose prefers ladies, and I noticed that they only kiss at the end and it immediately cuts away. But in my personal opinion it’s really hot any time she says he’s cute or leans in real close to him

or smiles while watching him fight

or especially when in the middle of the big battle the camera slowly pushes in on each of them as they stop and make eye contact.

One thing though. I know it’s politically incorrect and cancel culture or whatever to say this, but I actually think this movie… should’ve been a little longer? I was excited that it was only 82 minutes when I went in just thinking it was a goofy comedy that everyone had said was bad, but it turns out it takes its villain and a tragic death or two seriously enough that it could’ve benefited from taking more time giving them weight. And they could stand to tell us more about Rose’s deal. On first viewing this kinda feels like the digest version.

I guess I should thank the world for lowering my expectations, but now I must spread the word that if an inconsequential, pretty violent rom-com with Ariana DeBose having a blast and Ke Huy Quan doing top shelf fight scenes is something you’re in the market for, it’s worth checking out. Yeah, it’s no NOBODY, but I liked it.