‘Love Hurts’ review: Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan returns in passable action comedy

Has there ever been a more lovable Hollywood underdog than Ke Huy Quan? As a boy he fled with his family from a postwar Vietnam, became the cutesy co-star of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “The Goonies,” then hit the Asian glass ceiling and mostly gave up, settling for behind-the-scenes work instead.

A last-ditch return to acting in his late 40s led to a heart-melting role in 2022’s action comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and then — astoundingly — an Oscar win for best supporting actor. It was a fairy-tale moment, and Quan’s emotional acceptance speech was hugely moving.

Now comes the hard part: Sustaining a career.

Quan is sticking with what works in his follow-up project, “Love Hurts.” It is in some ways a shameless repeat of “Everything Everywhere,” an action comedy that once again casts Quan as a milquetoast who unleashes his inner martial arts warrior. It plays much rougher and doesn’t indulge in fanciful whimsy — no floating bagels here — which puts it more in a league with “John Wick” (whose uncredited co-director, David Leitch, is a producer here).

Though originality is not the movie’s strong suit, it has its moments and gives Quan another chance to shine.

Quan plays Marvin, who has just won Milwaukee’s Regional Realtor of the Year Award. He’s one of those businessmen with an almost spiritual connection to his work: “I pour everything into it because it’s meaningful,” he tells Ashley (Lio Tipton), his bummed-out millennial assistant. Today happens to be Valentine’s Day, but that doesn’t explain the mysterious card Marvin receives that says ominously, “I’m Back!”

It’s from Rose (Ariana DeBose, another Oscar-winner), a sexy if slightly irritating figure from Marvin’s past. (She’s the one who’s been drawing mustaches on Marvin’s bus-bench ads.)

It turns out Marvin was once a fearsome killer in service to his gangster brother, Alvin, aka “Knuckles” (Daniel Wu), who ordered him to kill her. Instead, the love-struck Marvin let Rose go. Both have been hiding ever since, but now Rose wants to settle the score with Knuckles once and for all. (Sound familiar? Noir fans will recognize the setup from 1947’s “Out of the Past.”)

Cue the procession of colorful hitmen hired to track Rose and Marvin down. First comes a knife-wielding poet named Raven (Mustafa Shakir), then come the bickering duo of King and Otis (Marshawn “Beastmode” Lynch and André Eriksen, respectively). Quan and first-time director Jonathan Eusebio are both experienced stunt choreographers, so the action scenes often crackle (and splatter). Quan uses his small size effectively; his Marvin proves a maddeningly fast moving foe.

Clocking in at just 83 minutes, “Love Hurts” goes by so quickly that you barely have time to object to its uneven tone (there’s some real cruelty here) or grouse about the complete lack of chemistry between Marvin and Rose. Let’s hope this passably entertaining movie is just a stopgap for Quan as his star continues to rise.