Spielberg was allowed to make Schindler's List on the condition that he make this movie first.
As a child, Eric Flynn really was a POW in a Japanese camp in China.
Not wanting 'blood money', Spielberg donated the money he earned from this film.
The futuristic yoga class was comprised of top contortionists.
Inspired by Spielberg's childhood experience of his father taking him in the middle of the night to see a meteor shower.
Every major character in the film was a real person (or a composite of real figures).
Spielberg used a Peterbilt truck because the cab resembled a face.
The crew all had food poisoning and couldn't do the scripted whip stunt, resulting in a now famous gun shooting scene.
Guri Weinberg played his father, Moshe Weinberg.
Two mannequins used for bodies floating down the river drifted off and couldn't be retrieved.
Gottlieb (screenwriter): 'The cast was going quietly insane, along with their director, who could not reveal the fact.'
The story was inspired by a question asked by the young son of screenwriter Jim V. Hart.
Spielberg made this film for his father, a US Air Force veteran.
Scenes in the kitchen were done using a boy with no legs who could walk on his hands.
The language Viktor speaks in the movie is Bulgarian.
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