In 1978, the movie became the first Filipino feature film to be presented in the Cannes Film Festival (Director's Fortnight) and to use Tondo as a shooting location.
The film underwent an extensive 4K restoration in 2015 from the original camera and sound negatives by The World Cinema Project at the L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, with color grading supervised by Pierre Rissient. Assistance was provided by Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation.
Police had to guard the filming locations in the Tondo section of Manila due to the presence of organized crime in that section of the city - to keep them from interfering with the filmmakers.
Shot in 21 days.
This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #874.