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Stars: Bernie Casey, Pam Grier, Lisa Moore, Bhetty Waldron, Sam Laws, Candy All, Don Diamond, Edmund Cambridge, Bob Harris, Rudy Challenger, Tracy Ann-King, Christopher Joy, Roger E. Mosley, John Lupton | Written and Directed by George Armitage

In the early 1970s, American filmmakers started a new genre of film in ‘Blaxploitation’. These films were mostly black casts and made for black audiences. Most of these films were known for their violence and sexual content. The term ‘blaxploitation’ was coined by the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood branch of the NAACP, Junius Griffin, in 1972. The same year Hit Man was released. This year sees the film celebrate its 53rd anniversary. Now, for this anniversary, Warner Archive Collection have restored this film and released it on Blu-ray for the first time!

Tyrone Tackett’s brother wasn’t the kind of man to throw his life away. Somebody killed him, plain and simple.

Strangely enough, Pam Grier’s last Blaxploitation feature, 1975’s Sheba, Baby, would be the title to introduce her to a much wider audience thanks to its PG rating. Though undoubtedly adult in theme, it’s a kittenish exercise compared to the violence, gratuitous sex, and shameless taken-for-granted racist and misogynistic antics of earlier efforts. Its classification as the final chapter of Grier’s Blaxploitation days is also sort of a misnomer, since this refers to the last time she’d don her famous persona as an action star in pursuit of a more serious career, heading into Drum (a sequel to the infamous Mandingo), starring opposite Richard Pryor in Greased Lightning, and even a Ray Bradbury adaptation in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). But 1975 was one of several sterling years for Grier, headlining three films, though none of them would eventually reach the same iconicity as the prior year’s...