Part of the "Actionfest" brand from After Dark and Joel Silver that also includes "Transit", "Stash House", "Philly Kid" and "El Gringo".
In a 2012 interview with Flickering Myth, John Hyams spoke about the shooting challenges of the film and his impression of Cung Le: "It was a very condensed preparation schedule. Once we officially started prep, we had two weeks and then we were shooting, and the shoot was only 15 days, and they added a couple later. It was kind of the way you never want to go into something, but at the time it was a different kind of challenge for me. I've worked on condensed schedules before, and it was a chance to experiment with some things. Some technical ideas I'd been thinking about, I wanted to try these things out before I went out to make Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012). It was a practice run. What happened was then I met Cung Le. I ended up talking to him, and I thought, 'This guy is very committed to what he's doing here.'... To me, it was a chance to work with this guy and realize his vision and get some people involved who would bring stuff to the table. It was a very different type of scenario. How could we tell this existing story and tell it in a way that's maybe bringing a different flavor to the Yojimbo (1961), A Fistful of Dollars (1964) story. "