First Impressions: Over Run Over (TVB, 2016)

Over Run Over (EU超时任务)

Genre: Modern Action/TimeTravel
Length: 22 episodes
Producer: Lam Chi Wah

Cast: Vincent Wong, Tracy Chu, Benjamin Yuen, Pal Sinn, Christine Kuo, Rebecca Zhu, Moon Lau, Zoie Tam, Rosanne Lui, Law Lok Lam, Vincent Lam, Clayton Li

The series kicks off and picks up quickly as Tracy Chu, a determined E.U. cop, goes through a series of time traveling to prevent her father from dying in an operation. Through each time traveling segment, she soon realizes that she has little control over the situation and each time, she is presented with a new situation to navigate and tackle. By episode 4, she has went through the time traveling portal three times, almost resulting in herself being the dead victim the third time. Through each time traveling segment, she also discovers something different, but I’ll leave that for you to unravel for yourself…

While the time traveling aspect is always supernaturally fun, it’s not the best of Over Run Over. Vincent Wong who plays a vulgar, loud village chief appears to work for Vincent Lam, a wealthy business man on the surface, but a triad boss who engages in illegal business behind the scenes. Vincent Wong’s character seems to bring in some humor with his character as a village man who speaks a village-specific Chinese dialect. Definitely a challenge for him as he has to maintain that dialect for at least four episodes, but my assumption is that he’s some kind of spy or undercover. Christine Kuo plays his ex, who appears as a sad and disillusioned investment broker in her character and stiff and boring in her performance.

I don’t know how the lead female cop (aka Tracy’s role) was first given to Myolie, and then Kate, but both actresses declined the role since they weren’t renewing their contract with TVB. While Kate use to be the go-to cop for many TVB action series, I really can’t see Myolie in the role, not to mention both actresses are older than Vincent.

Tracy becomes a better option here, but the determination and righteous of Ling San Fung also means that she isn’t as engaging nor fun as the uninhibited hacker she played in The Fixer. Tracy delivered in her role, but I don’t foresee it as anything memorable. At the end of the day, she’ll become another righteous cop that almost every other lead TVB fadan had played once upon a time.

Benjamin who leads another car on the E.U. team once again gets to be a very good, but boring cop. I love Benjamin’s humbleness in personality, but that easily translates as boring onscreen. Pal Sinn who plays the driver on Tracy’s team seems to have something going on deep inside him, but knowing that he’ll be paired with Rebecca Zhu, who played his daughter in Triumph in the Skies II makes me feel uneasy and uninterested in their relationship.

Moon Lau plays Vincent Lam’s sister and one of Tracy’s close buddies, but so far hasn’t done anything meaty for the plot. Although it’s my first time noticing Zoie Tam (she resembles Myolie Wu to a certain extent), who plays Tracy’s other close female friend and a nosy news reporter, I find her short haircut as cute as her personality. Using her journalist instincts to help Tracy gain some perspective and details for her time traveling, she has at least proved that she is a character somewhat worthy of having a place in the plot.

Although I’ve only seen four episodes of this and despite the action scenes, I’m quickly losing interest in all the time-traveling segments that Tracy goes through to prevent her father’s death. I’m a huge fan of time traveling dramas, but more so those when we get to go back to two thousand years ago like in A Step Into the Past. I’ll even take Captain of Destiny, where we only went two hundred years back, but it’s a bit weak and anti-climatic when we only get to go back to two days ago and imagine doing that five times only because you can’t change your reality the last four times.

It isn’t your typical procedural cop drama nor your typical time traveling drama, but each time Tracy goes through the portal, she is rather helpless as her reality doesn’t play out the same each time. It’s unpredictable, but not suspenseful. There are different consequences she has to face each time, but because she can go through the portal as many times as she wants, that also kind of defeats the purpose of consequences – or at least that’s how I feel.

The series has potential and a novelty aspect to it. The time traveling again and again somehow reminded me of the American movie, Inception, which I didn’t have patience for. And for that same reason, I’m quite ambivalent of Over Run Over as it doesn’t emotionally propel me to click on episode after episode like I did for Fashion War.

That said, it’s definitely not bad, but I also don’t see the point of where all this is going.

What do you think?

Have you started this? Do you like it? I would love to hear your thoughts about it since I’m quite ambivalent about this.