It’s happening about 40 years later than it should’ve but Ke Huy Quan is becoming a full-on action star. After winning an Oscar for his action-packed comeback role in Everything Everywhere All At Once, Quan landed the lead in Universal’s 2025 action film Love Hurts and now he’s signed on for a Lionsgate action film called Fairytale in New York. Yup, the Ke Huy Quan Kicks Ass genre is just getting started.
Fairytale in New York takes place “on Christmas Eve in New York City,” where “an unassuming cab driver takes one last ride before going to celebrate the holiday with his estranged son. After a run-in with a gang of criminals, he embarks on a relentless pursuit to retrieve his kid’s priceless Christmas gift.” So, part Jingle All the Way, part John Wick, and part A Christmas Story. We love it.
Plus, it’s directed by Jalmari Helander, who released an incredible action film earlier this year called Sisu. “As soon as we watched Sisu, we knew Jalmari was a filmmaker we wanted to be in business with again,” the chairman of Lionsgate, Adam Fogelson, said in a press release. “Fairytale in New York is a wildly entertaining, thrill ride of an action film and an emotionally resonant story about family. And every once in a while, an actor hits their prime—Ke Huy Quan is having that moment right now and his deep experience crafting action in front of and behind the camera as well as his exceptional likability make him the perfect actor for this project.” Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani (Black Adam) wrote the film.
And while Fairytale in New York doesn’t seem to be about a fairy tale, the past few years for Ke Huy Quan have been exactly that. After instantly rising to stardom in the 1980s with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as well as The Goonies, the actor found himself largely out of Hollywood. He kept active though, working as a stunt coordinator and more, before finally landing a nice, big role in that eventual Best Picture winner.
From there, he joined the MCU in Loki and, in 2025, he’ll play a similarly unassuming guy action guy in Love Hurts, out in February, as well as a role in the Russo Brothers’ sci-fi Netflix movie, The Electric State.
No word on a release date for Fairytale in New York but it would be wild if it wasn’t in theaters for the 2025 holiday season.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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