Girlfight was both Michelle Rodriguez’s first film and writer/director Karyn Kusama’s. Now it is in the Criterion Collection 24 years later. Looking back it is remarkable how fully formed Rodriguez was as a debut actor, and how Kusama anticipated the world of legitimate female fight sports.
The gritty grain of 16mm film is preserved in his Blu-ray. The saturated colors of the chipped paint on the gym walls, training gear and the colored rings shine brightly against the streets and warehouse spaces of Brooklyn.
Girlfight was in SDDS and Dolby Digital in 2000. You can hear it subtly in the gym as other people work out in the background.
Kusama gives a new 25 minute interview discussing the inspiration of Eraserhead, clips of her NYU student films and personal photographs of New York. This also includes footage of Rodriguez training. Kusama does specifically address the significance of the peeling paint. She also shares her notes from 1997 on casting, music, tone and the visual style. These were single spaced pages.
Composer Theodore Shapiro and Editor Plummy Tucker share their insights in another new interview. Kusama also gives commentary over storyboards for two scenes.
Kusama’s commentary from the 2001 DVD is also included. Funny enough, the new interviews go back further into the process but this track is present, just after filming and releasing Girlfight. Kusama discusses specifics of lighting the gym, filming boxing at the end of a long shooting day, the hot gym location, Kusama and the sound woman hiding in the backseat of a car, times punches accidentally connected and much more.