Trivia for
Rambo III (1988) More at IMDbPro »

• Original director Russell Mulcahy was replaced by Peter MacDonald due to creative differences.
  
  
• John Rambo's horse also appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) as Indiana Jones' horse.
  
  
• This was noted by the Guiness Book of World Records (1990) as to being the most violent film. It was noted with 221 acts of violence and over 108 deaths.
  
  
• The Mi-24 Hind-A (large glazed cockpit as opposed to two small tandem cockpits for the later D version onwards of the type) helicopters seen in the film are in fact modified Aerospatiale SA 330 Puma transport helicopters with fabricated bolt-on wings similar to the real Hind-A's used in the former Soviet bloc nations.
  
  
• With its $63m budget, this was the most expensive film ever made at the time of its release.
  
  
• Victor Banerjee passed on this film.
  
  
• Banned in parts of the UK after the killing spree of Michael Ryan, who claimed that his killings were inspired by the Rambo movies.
  
  
• The problems that the Russian forces faced with American Stinger missiles, as described in this movie, were very real, and accounted for hundreds of Russian helicopters during the real war. The missile was used again by Pakistan against better flown Indian aircraft and gunships in the 1999 Kargil War but only accounted for 1 kill out of several hundred launches.
  
  
• In this movie, Rambo can be seen wearing the necklace that Co (Julia Nickson) was wearing and which he put on after she died in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985).
  
  
• In this movie, in keeping with proper, albeit subtle, continuity, we see Rambo's scars from First Blood (1982) (the scar on his right arm, caused by the fall through the trees) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) (the small scar right above his left cheek, caused by the heated knife scraped by his eye).
  
  
• The other helicopter disguised as a Russian gunship was really an Aerospatiale/Eurocopter SA 341/2 Gazelle (also modified as the title helicopter in the movie Blue Thunder (1983)), of British/French design. The four fighter aircraft seen at a distance in the beginning are French-built Mirage-IIIs of the Pakistani Air Force.
  
  
• The knife in this film is the first in the series to not be designed by Arkansas knifesmith Jimmy Lile. The blade was designed by fantasy knife designer Gil Hibben and is two inches longer than the one in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and three inches longer than the knife in First Blood (1982). The knife is also the first in the series to not be of a survival knife design.
  
  
• The character Masoud (Spiros Focás) is a reference to Ahmad Shah Masoud, a real-life leader of the Afghani resistance against the Russian occupation, minister of defense of Afghanistan (after the Russian occupation ended) and later again a leader of the resistance, this time against the Taliban regime.
  
  
• According to Director Peter MacDonald in the DVD commentary, at the time this movie was being filmed, the Russians were in fact invading Afghanistan just as depicted in this movie, however about 4 weeks prior to this movie's premiere, the Russians had in fact withdrawn from Afghanistan and were no longer at war with that country. MacDonald felt that these turn of events had hurt the movie's box office returns, since the idea of the Russians being the primary villains in this movie was no longer really believable. At the same time though, MacDonald was somewhat glad of the idea that the events of this movie may have helped to contribute to Russia's withdrawal from Afghanistan.
  
  
• Director Peter MacDonald stated in the DVD commentary that for the scenes involving Rambo and Col. Trautman inside the Monks' Temple, the temple itself was a real temple in Thailand undergoing renovation at the time of filming. Also many of the Monk extras were in fact real Monks from that very temple who were paid to appear as extras for those scenes (along with additional extras who were merely dressed as Monks for the scene). MacDonald also went on to say how delighted he was to "give money to people who really needed as opposed to people who had too much of it".
  
  
• There is no female role in the main cast, and few women appear in the film.
  
  

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