The movie performed badly at the box-office in Australia upon initial release. After it opened in Melbourne in June of 1982, after its poor run in theaters there, it wasn't released theatrically anywhere else in Australia. However, it found more popularity upon video release in Australia on Roadshow Home Video.
The movie's eventual success is attributed to its casting of four prominent Australian actors, Chris Haywood, John Waters, and two actors who were rising stars at the time, Sam Neill and Mel Gibson. Sam Neill had appeared as the lead in the American film La Malédiction finale (1981), while Mel Gibson was fast becoming a big Hollywood star. Ironically, the casting of John Phillip Law, an American actor, is not believed to have contributed much to the movie's success on video in Australia.
After this film was made, producers John McCallum and Lee Robinson went on to make another Australian World War II war film, L'Honneur suprême (1982) (a.k.a. "Heroes of the Krait", a.k.a. "Southern Cross") which also was commercially unsuccessful.
The movie features Z Special Force, a.k.a. Z Special Unit, a.k.a. Z Force, a.k.a. the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD). This outfit was an Allied Special Forces World War II specialist reconnaissance and sabotage unit, which was also the subject of John McCallum and Lee Robinson's next film, L'Honneur suprême (1982) (a.k.a. Southern Cross, a.k.a. Heroes of the Krait). Z Force went on missions behind Japanese enemy lines in Southeast Asia. The unit was comprised mainly of Australians, but also included soldiers from New Zealand, Brtitain, Timor, and Indonesia.
Shooting was plagued by constant rain.