According to William Forsythe, Steven Seagal told Forsythe, "You really need to work on your Brooklyn accent." Forsythe, a Brooklyn native, replied, "Trust me, YOU do."
Gino fights a character called Sticks in the bar, played by veteran martial artist Dan Inosanto. He was one of Bruce Lee's best friends and one of the three people Bruce let train others in Jeet Kune Do. He is also a master stick fighter and has studied multiple disciplines like Escrima and Silat, and was the person who taught Bruce Lee to use nunchaku.
Steven Seagal declared in an interview that the movie's bar brawl was his personal favorite among all fight scenes he's done.
The movie was originally over 30 minutes longer, which included some more plot details and character development. Steven Seagal cut some of William Forsythe's scenes because he felt that Forsythe was upstaging him. Also, editor Michael Eliot re-edited the original cut of the movie. He did the same job with some other Warner Bros movies. Some scenes were deleted and some others were cut down for pacing. This is why there are two montage scenes with no dialogue in the finished film. Re-editing also caused some minor continuity mistakes.