The names of the other writers listed elsewhere in this article were attached after production ended, to take advantage of Italian tax rebates.

It was produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio in collaboration with an Italian company, and filmed on location in Hong Kong and Spain.

Notes on the dead man's body promise that the location of the treasure will be illuminated by a map, divided for security into four segments, each one tattooed as a message on the buttocks of all of Wang's four mistresses.

Armed with photographs of the women, Ho and Dakota form an uneasy alliance and set out in search of the map tattoos and the promised riches, only to be closely followed by a bloodthirsty Preacher, who wants to divide the fortune between himself, a strong Aboriginal ringfighter and a gang of criminals.

The Stranger and the Gunfighter was produced at a time when the Shaw Brothers were attempting to branch into more international co-productions, often genre-bending.