Gordon Chan's The King of Fighters was released during the same year as Dwight Little's Tekken in 2009, both movies were panned by fans and critics alike for being low-budget films, with bad casting, and are weak adaptations of popular arcade fighting-games from Japan.
American actor Will Yun Lee has similarities to Fatal Fury/The King of Fighters character Kim Kaphwan, unlike his character Iori Yagami. Similarities such as Kim and Lee both being Korean, they are both taekwondo experts, and they are both at the billed height of 5 ft 9 in (175 cm).
This film is loosely based on the game The King of Fighters '98: The Slugfest (1998) which is a reboot of the four previous chapters in The Orochi Saga from SNK's best-selling fighting game franchise.
Abigail Mavity as Yuri Sakazaki, Emma Lahana as King, Kane Kosugi as K' and Roger Fan as Alba Meira were all rumor to appear in the film as characters from 2004 games such as The King of Fighters Neowave and The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact.