[4] The first choice for the title role was Yorick van Wageningen, but he could not come to a financial agreement with the producers.

[6] The film was directed by Roel Reiné and produced by Klaas de Jong.

The film makes a minor reference to the Dutch East India Company, which contributed highly to the welfare of a small group of wealthy merchants in the 17th century in the Low Countries, and to the trading vessels that were protected by the navy under Michiel de Ruyter.

The film's main subjects, apart from Ruyter himself, are the internal politics of the country and the oligarchy that formed the ruling class at the time,[11] including the brutal murder of Johan de Witt and the complicated relationship with England, up to the engagement of the William III of Orange with the English princess Mary.

[13] In a review for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Abele writes: "With loving shots of booming, towering ships so dominant, and decades squeezed into what feels like a week of action, there's barely enough time to develop De Ruyter as a character in his own movie, or even successfully explain his war strategies.