Initial D reunites one of the most successful directorial teams in Hong Kong currently – Andrew Lau and Alan Mak – the duo behind the Infernal Affairs trilogy, for which they were both crowned best director at the 22nd Hong Kong Film Awards and the 40th Golden Horse Awards in 2000. 

However, the pair found filming Initial D, which took place in Japan and Hong Kong, to be more complicated than their previous films, mostly because of the difficulty with filming racing cars in action.