This special makes a really wide use of the original motion pictures score of two films: one composed and conducted by John Williams for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and the other composed and conducted by David Shire for 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984).
To be able to produce this special David Copperfield had to ask permission to film in places where normally would be prohibited. In fact almost all the illusions have been filmed in different places and at different times, over the course of three weeks: "Crystal Smoke Chamber" in a square, "Chinese Coin In Orange" at a stall selling fruit, "Broken And Restored Thread" in a private apartment, "Pearl Production" in the garden of an old Chinese woman, "Boy Levitation" on a bench of a public lawn, "Seeing Through A Woman" at night in an open space, "Restoring A Bicycle" at night in the middle of a road after a cycling accident suffered by an old Chinese man, "Crazy Man's Handcuffs" and "Chopstick Through Coin" in a pavilion, one immediately after the other, and finally "Walking Through The Great Wall Of China", performed at half height of the outer wall of this great Chinese barrier. Shortly before "Crazy Man's Handcuffs", Copperfield has witnessed the performances of two young Chinese magicians in the same pavilion.
Immediately before this special's closing credits David Copperfield announces that the following year's special would be set in Egypt, and then the camera zooms out to reveal that he is riding a camel. However, the Egyptian political situation became convoluted, so he had to drop the idea, producing instead The Magic of David Copperfield IX: The Escape from Alcatraz (1987).
Although "Walking Through The Great Wall Of China" is one of the few Copperfield's illusions no more repeated, a stage version of this illusion, known as "Walking Through A Steel Wall", was performed by him around the period of this TV special in the live show "The Magic of David Copperfield: Live on Stage". In fact, besides the 18 TV specials he made between 1977 and 2001, he also performs more than 550 live shows every year since 1983.
The "Levitating A Boy" illusion has been already performed in The Magic of David Copperfield IV: The Vanishing Airplane (1981).