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Released by: Mill Creek Entertainment
Released on: March 17th, 2019.
Director: Andy Sidaris
Cast: Dona Speir, Roberta Vasquez, Julie Strain, Bruce Penhall, Geoffrey Moore, Aki Aleong, Ava Cadell
Year: 1993
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Fit To Kill - Movie Review:
Directed by the late Andy Sidaris in 1993, Fit To Kill (which is a sequel of sorts to the director's earlier Hard Hunted) opens with a scene where in Donna (Dona Speir reprising her role from the last movie) and Nicole (Roberta Vasquez), special agents both, engaged in some outdoor combat training. A short time later, the movie introduces us to Chang (Aki Aleong). He is a businessman from the Orient who just happens to own the world famous Alexa diamond. This diamond, which was stolen from the Russians during the Second World War, is one of the most valuable gems in the entire world and because of that, there's a criminal element that would just love to get their hands on it. Meanwhile, a sexy DJ named Ava (Ava Cadell) works a at a radio station called KSXY that comes complete with a pool in the front where various ladies tend to skinny dip.
Chang is a good man though, and he intends to bring it back to the Russian people who are going to hold a banquet in his honor to celebrate the return of their precious stone. However, just before all of that is to go down, the diamond is stolen by a nefarious criminal named Kane (Geoffrey Moore) and his deadly partner Blu Steele (Penthouse Pet Julie Strain).
The company that was in charge of event security for the dinner have now got their hands full as to make amends to Chang and to Russia, they've got to go at get that diamond back from Kane and Blue Steel before the peddle it through a fence and turn it into cold hard cash. In order to make this happen, they send in Donna and Nicole, two beautiful and dangerous operatives who have what it takes to get the job done.
While Fit To Kill doesn't have the mutant toilet snake and bad martial arts factor (well, in all fairness there is some bad martial arts in here, but not nearly as much as the last movie) that made Hard To Kill such a damn good movie, it's still got enough Playmate's running around in camouflage shorts and tank tops wielding automatic weapons that it should please most fans of director Andy Sidaris' unique style of trash cinema. Highlights from the film include a nifty remote control helicopter attack scene, some great footage of the strip in Las Vegas circa the early nineties, and of course, Julie Strain, who manages to be creepy, intimidating, and sexy in that strange Amazonian way of hers all at the same time.
Like all of Sidaris' films, the plot in Fit To Kill is lean and mean, not wasting any time with things like character development or unpredictable plot twists. It's also full of breasts, bad one liners, remote control vehicles, squibs, hot tubs and cool locations. Once again, Andy piles on the naked women and gratuitous violence and delivers another incredibly enjoyable exploitation picture that never passes up a good opportunity to show someone getting it on or getting it in the back.
Fit To Kill - Blu-ray Review:
Fit To Kill arrives on a 50GB Blu-ray disc framed at 1.85.1 widescreen in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer taken from a new 4k restoration provided by AGFA and it looks quite strong, the feature given over 27GBS of space on the 50GB disc. Colors are nice, especially in the film's many brightly lit outdoor scenes, while black levels are solid too. Skin tones look nice and natural and the whole thing feels appreciably filmic in its look and feel. There are no noticeable issues with any edge enhancement or noise reduction and the disc is free of obvious compression artifacts. Some minor print damage does show up here and there but it's tiny stuff, not distracting at all.
The 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 audio track does what it can with the limitations of the source material. Dialogue is clean and clear and properly balanced but there's a bit of flatness to the audio that, no doubt, stems back to the original recording. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion and optional subtitles are provided in English.
The best extra on the disc is an audio commentary track with Andy and Arlene Sidaris, which is a pretty scene specific talk. They talk about shooing the opening scene in the backyard of their lawyer in Westwood, California and then about shooting some of the other footage from the opening outside of Las Vegas. Arlene notes that this is her personal favorite out of all of the pictures that they've made together and why they moved much of the production to Louisiana. The talk also covers certain shots were accomplished, the use of a remote control helicopter, the advantages of having a beautiful naked woman able to get you a drink at the pool, the importance of the buffet at the long, gone Dunes Casino in the Vegas shoot, the importance of Julie Strain to the Sidarisverse and how she came into the fold in the first place, how the film ties into Hard Hunted, the pedigree of Aki Aleung's filmography, using different continental locations to double for Hawaii, how and why the dress featured in the musical numbers was recycled from an earlier film, the order in which much of the material was shot, how and why Andy's son wound up in the movie, the intensity of the heat in the Arizona locations and lots, lots more. This is interesting and informative but also frequently quite funny, both Andy and Arlene have got a great sense of humor.
The rest of the extras look similar to other entries in the series, starting off with a two-minute video intro from Andy Sidaris and Julie Strain where Julie 'models' a Fit To Kill t-shirt. There's also a forty-minute behind the scenes segment shot, clearly, during the same session that the intro was shot in. They show off the tie in Spy Chicks comic book, and then go on to talk about the 'action segment' and the 'sexy segment.' They also talk about Ava Cadell's character but most of this is made up of tape sourced interview footage with Andy and Arlene Sidaris, Strain as well as camcorder-sourced footage taken from the shoot showing off the use of airplanes in the movie, the use of stock footage and more. There's footage of Andy on Joe Bob Brigg's show, random bits and pieces of behind the scenes material and then a bunch of BTS material from Return To Savage Beach.
Rounding out the extras are trailers for a host of Malibu Bay productions like Malibu Express, Fit To Kill, Picasso Trigger, Savage Beach, Guns, Do Or Die, Hard Hunted, Fit to Kill, Enemy Gold, The Dallas Connection, Day of the Warrior and Return to Savage Beach. Menus and chapter selection options are also provided. All of the extras included on the disc are carried over from the older DVD releases.
Fit To Kill - The Final Word:
Fit To Kill is upper level Sidaris, a fast-paced, gleefully exploitative mix of action and silly sexiness made with a sense of humor and a fun cast. Mill Creek Entertainment has done a great job bringing this one to Blu-ray with a very nice presentation and some fine extra features.
Click on the images below for full sized Fit To Kill screen caps!
