Did You Know?

Stallone intended to make this film before Rocky Balboa, but Rocky was green-lighted by MGM, so he had to put Rambo on hold.

The first Rambo film without the music of Jerry Goldsmith, who died in 2004.

This is the first Rambo film without a companion novel by David Morrell, Rambo's creator. Morell wrote the novel "First Blood", the basis for the first Rambo film, and novelizations of 'Rambo: First Blood Part II' and 'Rambo III'.

In many countries, the first installment, First Blood was re-titled "Rambo", so the title for the fourth installment had to be changed accordingly. In several countries, including France and Germany, the film is called "John Rambo." In Russia, the film is called "Rambo 4."

Rambo was banned in Myanmar (formally Burma), and bootlegs are a hot item. Burmese Freedom Fighters have even adopted dialogue from the movie as battle cries, most notably "Live for nothing, or die for something." Sylvester Stallone said "That, to me, is one of the proudest moments I've ever had in film."

Odeon, a UK cinema chain with more than 100 screens, refused to show the film for 'commercial reasons'.

During the montage after Rambo is asked to transport the mercenaries, it shows the alternate ending to First Blood where Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) would have ended Rambo's revenge on Teasle by shooting him in the abdomen.

The first Rambo film where Rambo uses a pistol. Also the first Rambo film without a helicopter. Most notably, it is the first Rambo film completely without a scene in which John Rambo is without his T-shirt, showing his muscles. This is due to Sylvester Stallone's, extensive tattoo work on both shoulders, which he started getting in late July 2007.

Sylvester Stallone specifically wanted the film to be set in the midst of the most brutal ongoing global conflict that was basically ignored by the public and media. After ruling out established (and well-known) conflicts in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, Stallone talked to international experts who told him about the Burmese junta's mass murder of the Karen people. He then set the movie's storyline in the middle of this genocide.

At different points in script development, Luc Besson, Richard Donner, and James Mangold were considered to direct.

In the nightmare sequence, just before Rambo learns that the group has been kidnapped, we see a short glimpse of Rambo's suicide, a scene that was cut from the original film First Blood.