The movie was later re-issued theatrically stateside in the USA on a double bill with Enter the Dragon (1973).
The film was ''from the producers of the Bruce Lee martial-arts classic Enter the Dragon (1973)'' according to 1980s home video sleeve notes. The movie's star Jim Kelly had co-starred with Lee in this earlier picture.
Though he was reprising his role of the title character from the previous film Black Belt Jones (1974), Jim Kelly's character is simply referred to as "Jones" in both the film and its credits.
According to 'Every '70s Movie', ''...the confusion over whether 'Hot Potato' is a real sequel to Black Belt Jones (1974) is compounded by the existence of a totally unrelated Jim Kelly movie called The Tattoo Connection (1978), which is sometimes deceptively marketed as 'Black Belt Jones 2' [and/or 'Black Belt Jones 2: The Tattoo Connection']''.
Cast members Jim Kelly and Irene Tsu had both appeared about a couple of years earlier in Three the Hard Way (1974) where they had shared a scene together.