The seven heroes' swords were designed by the director himself.
While the film credits Yusheng Liang's novel "Qijian Xia Tianshan" as its source, it is only very loosely adapted from it, bearing very little resemblance other than some character names, and is generally seen instead as an homage to Les sept samouraïs (1954).
The film's initial cut had a running time of about four hours. As this was deemed too long by distributors, Hark Tsui prepared two shorter edits, with running times of two hours and 2h30 respectively, and submitted them to the investors, who chose the 2h30 cut as they felt it developed the story and characters better.
The film was to be the first part of an ambitious multimedia project, to be followed by five sequels, a spin-off television series, a series of 40 comic books, an online multiplayer video game, a mobile game and more. Out of all these, only the television series, Qi Jian Xia Tian Shan (2005), was made, although it only lasted one season, which was shot simultaneously with the film. The screenplay for the first film sequel was completed in anticipation for a 2006 film shoot, with casting underway, but it was never made.