Following Alien vs Ninja and Mutant Girls Squad, Cold Fish is the third film to be released by Nikkatsu's Sushi Typhoon, their gore-themed series.[2]
Director and writer Sion Sono was influenced by Japanese crime cases while developing Cold Fish, specifically about an actual killing spree committed by a dog kennel owner in the 1990s (the story of the film involves a family of three that becomes entangled in a string of ongoing murders perpetrated by a tropical fish salesman in Shizuoka Prefecture).[3] Sono also wanted to "depict a sense of total hopelessness" which he felt is "lacking in Japanese films."