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The screenplay, written by Tarantino, was inspired by Hong Kong director Ringo Lam's movie Long hu feng yun (City on Fire) from 1987, which stars Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee, reportedly one of Tarantino's favourite films. The plot and many scenes were taken from it.
Tarantino was originally going to shoot it with his friends, but luckily he was able to get the script to Harvey Keitel who loved it. Funds were raised partly from selling the script for True Romance and what money Harvey Keitel was able to raise. The final budget was $1.2 million, not leaving money for all the costumes which is why some of the clothes used in the film belonged to the actors themselves.
The film's story is about a gang of criminals who rob a diamond wholesaler. After the robbery goes wrong due to the early arrival of the police, the criminals who get away meet up at the rendezvous point and try to figure out how the cops could have known.
The film gained notoriety for the amount of profanity in the dialogue, and for the level of violence it contained. However, Tarantino has pointed out that there are actually very few scenes of overt violence shown: for instance particular, in the infamous "ear torture" scene, the camera at the critical point focuses away from the actors.