A 14-year-old boy in Yibin city, southwest Sichuan province drank gasoline to obtain "energy" for five years, just as his idols "Bumble Bee" or "Optimus Prime" did in the on-showing famous movie "transformers", the Sichuan-based West China Metropolis Daily reported Sunday.

Since the boy watched the film, he began to drink gasoline, to become a "valiant fighter" as the "Optimus Prime", his father told the newspaper.

"He began to drink gasoline ever since five years ago, when we found he liked smelling the lighters' gas," he said.

The boy's mother owned a grocery stall, selling small goods as lighters to earn money. In 2004, the mother often found lighters lost in two or three days after her purchase. She felt strange and later found it was her boy stole them.

The parents then talked to their son and asked him not to do it again. "But afterwards we found our motorcycle's gasoline disappear always, and one day when we found the boy drink a half bottle of gasoline stolen from motorcycle, we were too shocked to say anything," the father said.

Although they locked the motorcycle in our living them after that, the obsessed boy stole the gasoline from neighbours, and he drank more and more gasoline, two or three bottles each time.

"Since my son start to drink gas, his intelligence quotient dropped sharply and could not figure out the addition and subtraction within 100" the father said.

"Before that, he was a very smart boy, and he can even repair the television. But now he did not know the answer of 7 plus 17."

The worried parents finally took their son to city's hospital, and they were told the boy had mental disorders and had a strong "gasoline dependence."

"The gasoline contains a lot of lead, which can do harm to people's brain. To make thing even worse, the boy is in the physical development stage, and the lead has caused serious damage to his body," Peng Houquan, a doctor from the fourth hospital in Yibin city said.

"We will invite some experienced experts to help the kid kick the gasoline addiction," Peng said.

As of Saturday, the Hollywood blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen gained 400 million yuan (58.4 million U.S. dollars) in China 19 days after its release on June 24, breaking the record set by Titanic ten years ago.