Due to a strong friendship formed between the two actors on the set of Bloodsport (1988), Jean-Claude Van Damme wanted no one but Bolo Yeung to play the lead villain in this movie.
Van Damme wanted to play twins to help change his image. "One of them is violent and the other is not, so the audience can see the contrast in my work," he said. "This picture has comedy, romance, a love story. So it is not all action and fighting. When I fight on screen, I blend dancing and fighting. Grace plus power is very nice."
Van Damme said his real life personality was closer to Chad than Alex. "In real life I am not this cold, quiet guy who goes around kicking butt."
In 2010, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Bolo Yeung were giving a martial art demonstration and Van Damme said hopefully one day he and Yeung will put a project together "Double Impact 2" and maybe Yeung will play a friend and not any enemy. In a 2012 interview promoting The Expendables 2 (2012), Van Damme mentioned that he would like to make another Double Impact movie with a more serious tone. During the interview, he also gave a rough idea of the plot: "Two twins one is coming back from Asia to Los Angeles to help his brother who is a con-artist and pretending to be a big Hollywood producer and he's in trouble with the mob". A Double Impact 2 script has been written by Van Damme and Sheldon Lettich (who co-wrote Bloodsport and Double Impact). Van Damme said "Hopefully, somebody smart enough, like an agent or a producer, can put that back together...I'm excited about it, you know?"
Freely based on Alexandre Dumas's novel "The Corsican Brothers", as the original working title was. It was even set to take place in France and Corsica.