The filmmakers used a real bushmen tribe and Regopstaan was their 95-year-old leader who only agreed to be in the movie if his tribe could follow him everywhere.
Dolph Lundgren performed some of the most dangerous stunts in his career, notably jumping from a moving motorcycle to a truck.
Original script had different opening scene than the film. It included Nikolai on a Spetznaz training exercise in snowy Moscow and it was supposed to be really big action sequence, but it was cut out of the script because of the budget and schedule reasons.
At one point, the cast and crew was left stuck in Johannesburg for three months while they waited for a new location to be found after they had prepped the production to be shot in Swaziland. The film was ultimately filmed in Namibia, which was then ruled by South Africa, thereby breaking an international boycott against the country for its practice of apartheid. Warner Bros., who had a negative pick up deal, pulled out from distribution.
Allegedly financed by the South African Defence Force through the International Freedom Foundation, a right-wing political think-tank which it funded. Escorpión rojo (1988) co-writer/producer Jack Abramoff helped to run the foundation.