Several cuts of the film were released with different content under different titles for different markets. The Japanese cut includes eight additional minutes of footage and does not include ant gay content. It was released under the title Phantom Below. Gay content is included because the film was in part financed by the LGBT-interest here! network but as a startup it had insufficient funds for the complete film.
Director Brian Trenchard-Smith called this a "gay submarine movie." He was hired by a company called Regent Entertainment to make this and In Her Line of Fire (2006), which Trenchard-Smith called a "lesbian Rambo movie," for their gay/lesbian Here Network. Both movies had to be made in two versions, gay and straight, for different distribution deals. Tides of War was the gay version of the submarine film and Phantom Below was the "straight version," though Trenchard-Smith said he always thought that would have been a much better title for the gay version. He even jokingly suggested doing a third version called Pink Torpedo: The Musical, but Regent didn't like the idea. In Her Line of Fire was the lesbian version and Air Force 2 cut out any reference to lesbians and two female/female kiss scenes. Trenchard-Smith said editing that film was easy because "It's not like there was extensive muff diving or dildo manipulation, which, he added, "Could have been fun though."
Faith Fay's debut.