Wissenswertes

When pitching the story to Hollywood studios, Hollywood wanted a white lead character to be played by Bruce Willis for $4 million dollars. They also wanted a role written for Nicolas Cage. The director and producers declined the offer and request because the script is originally about an Asian-American main character with a leading cast who are people of color. The team did not want to whitewash film, so they ended up going to Kickstarter to raise over $124,000 and had a few other investors to fund their independent film instead. (Source: The Daily Beast Op-Ed by Bao Tran; Seattle Channel Bao Tran interview)

Mykel Shannon Jenkins (who plays Jim) said it was his first time being exposed to Asian community, culture, and food while filming in Seattle. Jenkins said he is from the South (Mississippi-Louisiana-Texas) and did not truly know about the Asian-American community. He heard misconceptions and lies about the community from back home, but in reality he received a lot love and support from his Asian cast mates and crew. He also learned that Black-Americans and Asian-Americans have more in common than not. (Source: Asian Hustle Network Podcast with The Paper Tigers cast)

Director Bao Tran created the story and film treatment in 2011. He worked on this film for about 10 years. It is based on his personal experience with his friends and classmates when he studied martial arts.

The main cast (Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, Mykel Shannon Jenkins) are not only friends on-screen, but also became good friends in real life while they were filming. They would often eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, hang out, and rehearse with each other.

Jim's pre-fight advice to Danny includes the Konami code: "[...] so you gotta hit him with bad intentions. Up up, down, down left, right, left, right. Ba-ba! Start in on him."