Alternate versions

In 2021, 26 years after its original release, Robert Longo has converted the film into a black & white version that is a bit closer to his original intention. That black and white version premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Canadian distributor Alliance Communications removed 3 minutes from the Ontario version of the film to received the more lucrative Adult Accompaniment (under 14 must be with an adult) instead of Restricted (18 years or over).

Was released in Germany two versions, a uncut FSK-18 version and a edited FSK-16 version.

The Japanese version (director's cut) is rather different from the international re-edited cut. It runs ca. 10 minutes longer (the additional scenes focus mostly on Takeshi Kitano's character Takahashi), some additional scenes are intact whereas they were omitted in the other version), in other scenes different camera angles were used. It also has a different score composed by Mychael Danna (Brad Fiedel was brought on later re-score the picture) and more violence.