Trivia

"When the Man Went South" was filmed entirely on location in the Kingdom of Tonga.

Upon arrival in Tonga, the director and producers had no cast. Local villagers on the island of 'Eua were cast to play all the parts in the film; only Flying Fox was portrayed by someone with actual acting experience.

Producers touted this as the first narrative feature film to be shot in the Kingdom of Tonga, but that distinction actually goes to The Boy Chief of Tonga (1978).

While scouting down by the water's edge, the lead actor, Soane Prescott (Flying Fox) thought he saw signs of an approaching tsunami wave and told the director of photography, who was with him at the time, to run for high ground. The two came back and alerted the the other crew, only to find out soon after that there was no such seismic event. This earned Prescott the nickname "Tsunami", which was jokingly used for the duration of the shoot.

Within a day of scraping his wrist on the coral reef surrounding the island of 'Eua, one of the producers needed immediate medical attention. The abrasion resulted in long "tracks" under the skin that started at the point of contact down the length of his arm. On a second occasion, Alex Bernstein (writer/director) and Zach Heffner (director of photography) were pulled out to sea past the reef wall in a very strong cross rip-tide. The two remained approximately 300 yards from shore, treading water, for more than twenty minutes. Agent Ogden (producer/editor) realized they were having trouble getting back in, and found a life-ring that he managed to float out to them. Heffner, a retired professional athlete, stated "I had about 10 more minutes of fight and that was it." It is laughed about now, but was a serious situation at the time. After the situation was resolved, Kamaloni Afu (Gecko Lizard) said, "Today is not a good day for swimming on this beach."