On arrival, Cole learns that his friend is being harassed by the wealthy businessman Charles Venarius who wants Frank's land for the oil underneath.

Hasegawa strikes the Landers' estate at night, killing Frank in front of Mary Anne, then abducting her to Venarius' martial arts arena.

[1] The film was initially set to star Karate champion Mike Stone, who wrote the script.

[1] Principal photography began on January 12, 1981, in the Philippines and in Tokyo, Japan,[Note 1][1][9] under the direction of Emmett Alston.

[1] Stone received onscreen credit for the film's story, fight choreography, and stunt coordination.

[18] In a contemporary review, Robert Brown of the Monthly Film Bulletin gave the film a negative review, stating that it "seems singularly lacking in even the commercial ingredients that made Enter the Dragon such a successful showcase for the Kung Fu genre".

[2] Brown commented that Golan "never seems to have decided which genre he was exploiting, and ended up mistakenly crossing romantic drama with martial arts".

[9] Richard Harrington of The Washington Post wrote that the "plot limps along looking for convenient excuses for Ninjas to enter into brawls", noting that "none of the reasoning, acting or dialogue is particularly bright much less believable" while "the best directing in the film comes from fight choreographer and ex-karate champion Mike Stone, who obviously gets his kicks in".

[13] Guarisco also commented on Franco Nero that it "looks uncomfortable as the ninja expert and fails to perform convincingly during the fight scenes" and that Susan George was wasted as the damsel in distress.

[13] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 35 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".