Michael Dudikoff turned down the lead role in this film for several reasons, among them being the fact that he didn't want to get burned out on martial-arts movies and didn't want to go back to South Africa--where American Ninja 2: The Confrontation (1987) was made--as he was firmly against the apartheid movement and government in that country. He returned for the fourth "American Ninja" entry because it was to be filmed in the nearby African country of Lesotho.
The score for the film is mainly just a sample from composer George S. Clinton's previous score for Avenging Force (1986), another Cannon Group movie which, coincidentally, was directed by Sam Firstenberg, and starred Michael Dudikoff and Steve James, the team from the first two "American Ninja" series entries from Cannon.
David Bradley's character was introduced as being younger than Michael Dudikoff's character, but Bradley is actually a year older than Dudikoff.
The role of David Bradley's character was originally offered to Kurt McKinney, who turned it down for fear of being typecast as a martial-arts actor.
In a 1994 interview in "Masters of Kung Fu" magazine, Kurt McKinney was offered the lead role in the sequels but upon learning that all the films were to be shot in South Africa, he felt that since he had recently been married, he couldn't be away from his wife that long, so he opted not to take the role It eventually went to David Bradley.