In the original cut of the film, James Pax's Teng was the primary villain, having been defeated by Bolo Yeung's Shingo in a previous Shootfighting match, thus leading him to set up his own tournament to lure him back for a rematch. This is also why some international VHS summaries of the film have the line "From the day they were born, Shingo and Teng had been trained and primed like human bombs to explode." However, after internal screenings, additional funding was put towards reshoots, which would bring in Martin Kove as the film's new villain, Lee, and changing Pax's character to a subordinate villain. The reshoots would also add the new "octagon" location for the finals (most likely introduced into the production by Kazja Patschull, who would also play "Skeeter"), and ramp up the violence level in these new fights. The only footage released publicly of the original cut of the film came from a film market trailer/"sizzle reel" (awkwardly set to Giorgio Moroder's "Ivory Tower" from The Neverending Story), showing the original fights with Bolo VS Pax, as well as deleted dialogue segments.
Martin Kove and William Zabka starred together in The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai.
When this was shot in 1993, it was only the second time Bolo was cast as one of the "good guys" (first was Fearless Tiger, 1991, though his role there was so minor, and screen time so brief that it hardly counts) after more than 100 roles as a bad one - mostly playing the biggest and baddest on the villain side of the action.
In the film the fighter Hawk says to Ruben "I hope you brought your body bag."