In his autobiography, Bradford Dillman says that he only took the role so he could bring his wife Suzy Parker on a trip to the Orient.
First picture in an initiative by the Golden Harvest production house to make a series of high quality English language pictures in Hong Kong top-lined with American stars so as to garner global worldwide interest to audiences. This was initialized with this film after the international box-office success of the production company's four Bruce Lee movies.
The movie ''...is supposedly a remake of 'Jumping Ash' (1976) [See: Jumping Ash (1976)] which is considered the first film of the Hong Kong New Wave and was a breakthrough for director Ronny Yu'' according Andrew Pragasam in his review at 'The Spinning Image' website. That film's synopsis at the Internet Movie Database reads: ''The battle between two gangs starts off in Amsterdam, where one of the gang leaders is murdered.''
Star Robert Mitchum had recently headlined another Asian set crime picture in the Orient which was the Japan-set The Yakuza (1974).
Director Robert Clouse was deaf and was reliant on his assistant directors to her the dialogue and verify that it had been delivered effectively as was done on his other pictures.