The Điện Biên Phủ original soundtrack was composed and partially performed by pianist Georges Delerue, featuring Japanese vocalist Marie Kobayashi.

Simpson's sources of confidential information include French military personnel (Patrick Catalifo, Eric Do), an Agence France Presse correspondent (Jean-François Balmer), an influential Vietnamese nationalist (Long Nguyen-Khac), a Chinese contrabander (Thé Anh) and a Eurasian opium dealer (Maïté Nahyr).

Simpson sends scoop-worthy news to the San Francisco Chronicle daily newspaper, through a Hong Kong-based agency, in order to elude French military censorship that existed at the time in Hanoi and the rest of Indochina.

The first are mainly illustrated by the unnamed "Nam Yum rat" (Fathy Abdi); an example of the second type is the philosopher-friendly artillery lieutenant (Maxime Leroux), who refuses to obey orders to retreat and eventually dies for the sake of honor.

The main characters have fictitious names, but are members of real units, like the 5th Bawouan Vietnamese paratrooper Lieutenant Ky (Eric Do) or Captain de Kerveguen (Patrick Catalifo)'s Foreign Legion company.

On 11 March 1954, Schoendoerffer was injured at Dien Bien Phu, in a minor skirmish (Cote 781 attack) before the main battle, and he was sent to the southern base located in Saigon aboard a C-47 transport plane.

His films were supposed to be sent to the rear on March 28, using a C-47 belonging to a military nurse named Geneviève de Galard, but the C-47 was damaged beyond repair by Viet Minh artillery that hit the Red Cross aircraft.

On May 7, 1954, at 6 p.m., a half-hour after the French ceasefire (except for the strongpoint Isabelle still fighting until May 8 1:00 a.m.) he was ordered to get out of his Parachute Commandment blockhouse, where he was waiting with the officers Bigeard and Langlais and the military nurse Geneviève de Galard and subsequently became a Viet Minh POW.