Jean Claude Van Damme was one of the stuntmen for this movie. His name appears in the credits under Stunts Performed by as J. Claude Van Damme. This was before his breakthrough performance in Bloodsport (1988).
Filmed simultaneously with Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985), from June until October 1984, this was supposed to be the sequel. However when the producers realized this film was the better of the two, they simply renamed them and made the other film a prequel to this. This explains why Steve Bing receives a credit for "characters" because he wrote the screenplay for what became the prequel.
This was the first film in Chuck Norris' five film contract with Cannon Films which paid him a million dollars per film which was agreed to by Menahem Golan against the wishes of his cousin, Yoram Globus.
In his autobiography, Chuck Norris stated that he made this film as a memorial honor of his younger brother Wieland, who was killed in the Vietnam War in 1970.
Aaron Norris (Chuck Norris' brother) was the stunt coordinator for the two sequels even though he was uncredited in the 2nd one, then he became the director of Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988).
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