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Love Hurts (2025)

  • ️Tue Oct 22 2024

Love Hurts (2025) (Film)

You can't break up with your past.

Love Hurts is a 2025 action romantic comedy film directed by former stunt coordinator Jonathan Eusebio, produced by David Leitch, and starring Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Mustafa Shakir, Cam Gigandet, Marshawn Lynch, André Eriksen, Lio Tipton, and Sean Astin.

Quan plays Marvin Gable, a mild-mannered realtor whose violent past catches up to him with the arrival of a threatening Valentine in a red envelope. Now, he must make peace with Rose (DeBose), the partner he left behind in order to defeat his crime lord brother (Wu). The film released on February 7, 2025. Not to be confused with the trope Love Hurts.

Previews: Trailer

Love Hurts contains examples of the following:

  • Advertising by Association. The trailer boasts both Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose as Academy Award winners.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Marvin's secretary Ashley is especially sour during Valentine's Day due to having nobody in her life. She ends up with a growing attraction to one of the killers after Marvin.
  • Big Bad: Knuckles is a violent, ruthless crime lord and the main antagonist. He hunts for his brother and Rose.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: Raven has two huge blades hidden in his shoes that mount on his arms, looking like something out of Mortal Kombat or the Shaw Brothers' kungfu movies.
  • Casting Gag: Marvin's biggest house-selling competitor Jeff Zaks is played by Drew Scott, one of the Property Brothers.
  • Death Faked for You: When Knuckles ordered Rose to be executed for her theft, Marvin volunteered to carry it out. However, he merely dug an empty grave for her and ordered her to hide herself, unwilling to kill her due to loving her.
  • Enemy Civil War: Turns out King and Otis are out to silence Rose because she knows they've been taking Knuckles' money. Marvin successfully convinces Raven to help him take them on.
  • Evil Is Petty: Knuckles murders Cliff not just for stumbling onto him, but for claiming to be like a brother to Marvin, the concept of Marvin having another brother something he won’t allow.
  • Expecting Someone Taller: The hitmen who find Marvin in the trailer actually say that they thought he would be "scarier".
  • Eye Scream: Knuckles murders Cliff by inserting the straw from his boba tea into his eye.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Cliff knows he has no chance of leaving Marvin's place alive once he knows who Knuckles is and what he's about. But he never panicks and calmly gives Knuckles "The Reason You Suck" Speech that Knuckles will never be able to bring the monster out of Marvin again.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: The Russian mob, whom Knuckles has been dealing with for a long while - until Rose exposed his financial indiscretions to them, leading them to drag him off.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Knuckles murders Cliff with an Eye Scream when he realizes that Marvin thinks of Cliff as a brother far more than he ever did towards Knuckles his biological brother.
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Rose speeds toward an oncoming car with Marvin in the passenger seat to bring out the badass Marvin she remembers.
  • Impaled Palm: Marvin ends up spending nearly the whole movie with this after Raven KO's him and sticks his hand to a desk when he's out.
  • Improvised Weapon:
    • Subverted with the first fight in Marvin's office. Turns out a fucking pencil isn't that effective.
    • Marvin ends up fighting off two hitmen who found him in his own kitchen. You will never look at cookie cutters the same way again.
    • Knuckles uses a boba tea straw, which is actually thicker and stronger than the garden variety ones.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: Towards the end of the film, as Marvin begins embracing his old self, Rose becomes much more enraptured by him. She is very pleased at the end of the film when he all but sheds his Asian and Nerdy look.
  • Living Is More than Surviving: Rose came back to Marvin because she feels that just keeping her head low and staying out of danger isn't really living.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Rose provides plenty of eye candy for viewers, including one shot of her in lingerie in bed, another of her in the shower, and generally dresses very well most of the film.
  • Mustache Vandalism: Marvin’s For Sale signs keep getting vandalized to give him different mustaches including a little Hitler toothbrush mustache. It was all done by Rose just to taunt him.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Cliff, in more than one way.
    • He lent his car to Marvin, but then goes to Marvin's place out of concern for how Marvin's doing, only to meet his inevitable death at Knuckle's hands.
    • On a more meta level he tells Knuckles that he had a whiff that Marvin had a troubled past but took him in as he believes in giving people second chances. Giving Marvin that second chance doomed him in the long run.
    • Also Jeff Zaks, who doesn't hesitate to go charging in when he sees men with guns entering a house being sold by his rival only to get shot in the head for his trouble
  • Noble Demon: The henchmen who come after Marvin are violent killers but reasonable guys at their core with their own sense of honor. The Raven is a thoughtful, meditative poet who can be convinced to join forces with an enemy when needed, and Otis loves his wife while King genuinely encourages him to reconcile with her.
  • Repurposed Pop Song: The trailer is set to Céline Dion's "It's All Coming Back To Me Now".
  • Sacrificial Lion: Cliff (Sean Astin) tries to find Marvin and ends up finding Knuckles by accident. He pays for it dearly. Cliff's death marks the point when Marvin's old life firmly begins overwriting his new one thanks to the death of his beloved mentor and friend.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Jeff is confident that his karate training will help him overcome Otis and King with ease. Except that when he tries it on King, which looks exactly like a practiced kata taught in a dojo, it barely phases King. His traditional martial arts training is of no use against professional killers who, even if they don't have the same kind of formal training, actually have experience in real life combat and life and death situations. And that's before we get into the fact that they're packing firearms and he isn't, which predictably results in a Boom, Headshot! when he ignores Marvin's advice. If any scene can fuel criticisms of traditional martial arts being taught out of Mc Dojos, it's this one.
  • Title Drop: In the trailer, Marvin tells his brother “love hurts” as he lays the smack down on him. In the actual movie it's at the very end, in completely different context.

    "Love hurts, but it's totally worth it."

  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Cliff is a kind-hearted Benevolent Boss who gave Marvin the chance he needed to turn his life around. And he ends up a Sacrificial Lion when the skeletons from Marvin's past resurface.
  • Valentine's Day Episode: In the trailer, Marvin’s office has various Valentine's Day decoration and he receives a message in the form of a Valentine that reads “Hiding ain’t living”. Almost the entirety of the movie takes place over the holiday.
  • Valentine's Day Violence: Much of the film revolves around the violent goings-on of a former hitman being faced with his old life again on Valentine's Day.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: King and Otis frequently get at each other’s throats but they do have a genuine friendship. King counsels Otis on his icy marriage and is genuinely happy when he’s able to repair it.