* ActorSharedBackground: Creator/HaingSNgor himself was a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime.
* CaliforniaDoubling: The film was actually shot in Thailand, since shooting in actual Cambodia was out of the question.
* CompletelyDifferentTitle: Known in France as ''La Déchirure'' ("The Tearing").
* EnforcedMethodActing:
** Haing S. Ngor lived through the Khmer Rouge eradication of the educated, so he had to pretend to be uneducated, even though he was a gynecologist, meaning he was forced to watch his wife go through a miscarriage and not help her. Roland Joffe admitted it was strange to give Ngor instructions: "During shooting, I would sometimes crawl below the camera and call out to him: 'Remember how you felt!'"
** One attack scene which shows a girl sitting on the back of a cart with her hands over her ears and crying. In real life, the girl actually had a happy disposition and director Roland Joffé was having difficulty getting her to cry. Finally, the Thai interpreter told her that she and everyone else (cast and crew) would have to stay there and couldn't go home. The girl burst into tears and the shot was achieved.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Creator/StanleyKubrick once considered making the film, but a close aide reviewed the book as "un-cinematic", according to notes and letters in the Kubrick archive in London.
** Creator/AlanArkin, Creator/DustinHoffman and Creator/RoyScheider were interested in playing Sidney Schanberg, but the filmmakers went with an unknown.
** Creator/KevinCostner was considered for Al Rockoff.
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