Duffy Collins (Bruce Baron) is a gangster who falls for and is rejected by Jack Kaplan's wife Diane, after which he kidnaps and eventually kills her.
Digger (James Gaines) is a small-time crook and informer, who leads Jack Kaplan towards Duffy Collins and is killed for that by the Man with the Golden Hand.
Police Chief (Mike Monty) goes after Jack Kaplan after he is wrongly suspected of killing a minor bad guy.
Jack Kaplan is a US Army Soldier and Weapons Expert kept as a POW somewhere in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos (the script is never quite clear on that).
Liberated by a "rescue team", he returns home to the United States only to find out that his wife Diane has been captured by infatuated gangster Duffy Collins.
Kaplan embarks on a mission to find his wife, running into characters like Digger, Man With The Golden Hand, and the treacherous femme fatale Eve.
Richard Harrison wrote a short piece on Fireback and the Silver Star films for the book Gods in Polyester, where he recalls his (generally negative) experiences working in the Philippines, with additional anecdotes on James Gaines, Teddy Page and Romano Kristoff.