400 years into the future. Thus began Pyun's interest in a cyberpunk setting. When Cannon ran into financial trouble in October 1986, Pyun was asked to shelve Alex Rain temporarily and to focus instead on helping Cannon salvage its over-budget and incomplete adventure film Journey to the Center of the Earth. After this he focused on other projects, most notably the film Cyborg (1989). Pyun returned to Alex Rain in 1991, after making the virtual reality film Arcade for Full Moon Entertainment. Pyun's research on that film gave him a number of ideas he wanted to incorporate into Alex Rain, including lowering the age of the protagonist to 13 and making Alex a tough, violent street urchin working undercover for a futuristic L.A.P.D. Having just worked with Megan Ward on Arcade, Pyun met with Ward and her agents to outline the film and discuss casting her as the lead. Ward and her agents responded favorably, despite reservations about the high level of violence and a scene which called for her character to be completely nude. Pyun shot a few test scenes with Ward and then began looking for a studio partner. Pyun read an interview with Imperial Entertainment's production executive, Ash Shah, and realized he and Shah shared similar views about where low-budget action movies could go. Pyun met with the three Shah brothers and pitched them his ideas for the film and its possibilities. He left the screenplay with the Shah's and they called the next day to say they wanted to make the film. However, there was one condition: they wanted the lead changed from a 13-year-old girl to a 30-year-old male, so as to utilize their recent discovery, French kickboxer Olivier Gruner. At a long meeting at Imperial, both sides went back and forth until Imperial agreed that, other than the sex change, they would let Pyun make the movie he wanted to make no matter how unorthodox his methods. Pyun agreed to cast Gruner and pre-production began within days. Release The film was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by Imperial Entertainment on 29 January 1993, grossing $2,001,124 at the box office. The company also released it on VHS and laserdisc the same year. The film was released on DVD by Sterling Home Entertainment in 1998. This version is currently out of print. In 2010, director Pyun announced his intention to re-release the