Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the 95th Academy Awards. His role in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) was his first major job in 20 years or more. His debut was as a child actor in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). He was in The Goonies (1985). He did a few things until the 90's, but he didn't really work in Hollywood for any of the 2000's until that 2022 hit. He never got roles in front of the camera. This is true for a lot of actors of Asian descent. Obviously, there have been big-names like Jackie Chan who was dominant in the 80's and 90's. However, the 2000's saw a significant drought of Asian actors in leading roles. One could argue Keanu Reeves who is of mixed Asian race, but many might not even know Reeves' full ethnicity. There have been guys like Henry Golding and Simu Liu who have lately been able to break through, but the lack of Asian representation in cinema is ridiculous. Ken Wantanabe made a big splash on television, years after Sandra Oh made her mark on TV, but having Quan in this leading position on the big screen is an important thing in that regard.
Quan also worked as a stunt coordinator and was a martial arts choreographer for a few films, including X-Men (2000) and The One (2001). He got to show off some of his own fighting skills in Everything Everywhere All at Once. 87North produced this film. 87North is a company that was founded by a stunt coordinator and fight choreographer who wanted to become a director. That company is best known for producing the John Wick (2014) film, starring the aforementioned Keanu Reeves, and its subsequent sequels and spin-offs. John Wick is about an assassin or mob enforcer who tries to get out of that life of crime. He becomes pitted against Russian gangsters. 87North's Nobody (2021) was also about a former assassin trying to live a life out of the crime world, but Russian gangsters come after him, making him have to fight for survival, as he struggles between his quiet suburban life and the deadly, dangerous life he used to have.
This film is essentially the same plot as John Wick and Nobody, which would have been fine, if the writers here had developed Quan's character of Marvin Gable a bit better. The film is essentially a romance. The problem is the writers don't develop the relationship in question in any significant or impactful way. 87North just did an action romance last year with The Fall Guy (2024). My problem with that film is that the romance there wasn't developed much either. One of my key complaints was that the two lovers barely had any scenes together and a large chunk of the film has the two lovers apart, so the on-screen chemistry has less time to bloom in front of our eyes. The same is true here, and the film never really justifies why the two are lovers to begin with.
Ariana DeBose (Kraven the Hunter and West Side Story) co-stars as Rose Carlyle, a woman who worked for a criminal organization in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was presumed dead for who knows how long, but now she's back and she's targeting members of that same criminal organization. She's specifically targeting Quan's Marvin Gable who is working as a successful realtor. Why she was presumed dead is because Marvin was assigned to kill her. Yet, he didn't kill her. He actually let her live because he loved her. When she does target him and others, it alerts the members of the criminal organization that she's alive, which causes the criminal organization to go after Marvin for not killing her. She wants revenge against the criminal organization, but not necessarily revenge against Marvin. Yet, she does so in a way that still puts Marvin in danger for no reason and when analyzing her actions, they start to make no sense.
The film sets up Rose to be like the Bride in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003). When it comes to most of the intrigue, Rose is the driving force. Yet, the film sidelines her to some degree. She could be argued as being a co-lead in this story, but she doesn't feel like the protagonist here in any way. She's a person of interest in this narrative, but she's not as much of a presence as Uma Thurman was in Kill Bill. Essentially, Rose is a villain. Unlike Marvin, she doesn't want to get out of the criminal organization. She simply wants revenge and she wants to pull Marvin back into it. This isn't exactly an acceptable rooting interest. Ostensibly, Rose is arguing for Marvin to be his so-called true self, which is that of a murderous martial artist. Therefore, she's hoping that Marvin becomes a thug that kills people again, and that's supposed to be romance?
Director Jonathan Eusebio in his directorial debut, having worked as a stunt coordinator for 87North films and others like some MCU flicks, as well as The Matrix Resurrections (2021), might have been going for a gothic romance, a dark twisted one or something on the level of Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Yet, the rest of the film doesn't feel that way. It feels a lot like The Fall Guy, which is a more goofy rom-com in its tone. If anything, the tone that Eusebio is attempting would be more akin to that of a Jackie Chan film. The action choreography here is certainly trying to be on the level of Jackie Chan's films, but Chan's films and choreography never felt as limited or as restricted. Eusebio's gimmick though might be to have his fight scenes occur in small rooms, just to see how intricate or crazy they can get in tiny spaces. It's somewhat effective. There are fights in Marvin's office and his kitchen, which are somewhat funny.
It's strange that in a film that's supposed to be a vehicle for Ke Huy Quan, the one person who really stands out is Mustafa Shakir (Cowboy Bebop and Luke Cage) who plays Raven, another assassin who is secretly a poet. He's sent to capture Marvin and question him about Rose. He's given an interesting weapon in blades or knives that he hides all throughout his body, particularly in his shoes. We don't get much about him, but the film does spend some time on a romance for him. Given the running time, the film didn't really have the space for a romance that was anything other than the one between Marvin and Rose. Yet, the film pivots to a third romance, one involving a henchman pursuing Marvin. The fact that the film pivots to these other romances is almost tantamount acknowledgment that Marvin and Rose's romance was way too thin.
Rated R for strong, bloody violence and language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 23 mins.
In theaters.