If not for a few decent productions, I would strongly suspect that BOB and Andrew Lau had made a pact with the devil. First they brought us the trashy and socially irresponsible (but fairly enjoyable) Young and Dangerous series, the the irredeemably awful Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero; The Legend of Speed is the studio's latest terror starring the reliably bland Ekin Cheng.
Thankfully, the film, while undeniably bad, is not as mind-numbingly dull as BOB's period entries. Ekin's detestable character suffers a few beatings, which are quite enjoyable; in fact, I was rooting for Simon Yam's villain the whole time. Cecilia Cheung gives her worst performance to date, and is good for a few laughs. Moses Chan and Patrick Tam present hilariously simplistic caricatures of AIDS victims and the mentally impaired, respectively. Andrew Lau shoots everything for maximum camp value; Ekin's brooding and the ludicrously sped-up racing scenes are good for laughs. I'm a little uneasy about Lau's attitudes towards sex; he always presents it in the sleaziest and most unappealing manner possible, and TLOS's early sex scene is probably his most uncomfortable to date. In sum, this is a flashy movie that glorifies irresponsibility, arrogance, and an extremely dangerous and illegal sport. I hope the makers of "Full Throttle" were paid a fortune for the use of the Chinese title, because this movie is a horrible perversion of Derek Yee's earlier film. Still, this one might be worth watching with a few friends if you enjoy camp.