I wasn’t planning on writing anything about Falling Into Your Smile, but the particularly high rating it’s gotten here (8.7 at the time of writing) compelled me to offer a counterpoint.

First, to be clear, I liked this drama. It was perfectly fine. By my own ratings “scale”, it is respectably ranked. It was a fun and cute “happy” drama, with very little that was annoying or frustrating (a feat in itself!). I loved the team dynamics and friendships. The teammates were funny and immensely likable, and I even enjoyed the side characters on other teams. Tong Yao’s (played by Cheng Xiao) parents are great. Except for Kevin Xiao and Rachel Wang, this was my first drama for the rest of the cast, including Xu Kai (a sometimes-distracting reminder of a young Leonardo DiCaprio).

I also appreciated that the show tackled and highlighted the absolutely batsh*t extremes fans and haters go to attack people through social media. It captured the viciousness and influence of toxic fans — something we’ve seen play out in real life. The online “drama” playing out among Chinese netizens and esports fans absolutely trashing Falling Into Your Smile has been rather ironic. And like her character in the drama, lead actress Cheng Xiao has unfortunately been on the receiving end of a lot of online hate and harassment. (On Douban, it has an unreasonably harsh 3/10 rating.)

As a side note, given how conservative C-dramas have historically been when it comes to vocalizing the topic of sex, I was surprised by how frank it was in approaching the subject, relatively speaking.

I was also pleasantly amazed there were no undeserving and unrealistic “redemption arcs” for bad parents (two sets of them!) or for the villains. And the storylines involving antagonists wrapped up before they dragged.

As someone who loved The Untamed, the passing references, background set decor, and nods to the drama sprinkled here and there were also fun to catch. (The two shows share the same production company and producer.)

So where’s the counterpoint then?

This is a perfectly enjoyable esports romance that is nonetheless way over-rated in my view:

I wasn’t overly invested in the central relationship and on the whole, there wasn’t much team or character growth.

The overarching story about the team’s journey through Nationals was underwhelming and somewhat flat, so there was even less emotional investment. In some ways, it felt a bit repetitive. In otherwords, it didn’t pass the binge-worthiness test.

Crossfire is a much more compelling drama about the gaming and esport evolution aspect of the genre.

Gank Your Heart, while flawed on several fronts including the romance aspect, had a much more interesting story in my view when it came to depicting how a team falls apart and the journey towards building a new one. It was pretty low-budget by comparison though, especially when it came to the actual gaming scenes (I believe they were also playing Onmyoji Arena), so I get why it might be considered more inferior.

Most of the acting in Falling Into Your Smile was fine, but I wasn’t exactly wowed either, even with Xu Kai’s. I see potential though and do look forward to watching them again, including Zhai Xiaowen in Heaven Official’s Blessing, Xu Kai (he’s been extremely busy!) and Gao Han in Ancient Love Poetry, and Yao Chi in Immortality.

To be fair, I was coming off a couple of dramas that had left me in a bit of a show-hole, so I was perhaps more sensitive to the emotional component (or lack thereof). It’s great so many people enjoyed it — I did too — but an 8.7 from me would require a more complex story arc that evokes much stronger emotions, and in my view, there are more deserving, but lower-rated dramas, esports and otherwise, who fit the bill better.

(This is a slightly condensed version of a review I first posted on my drama blog: https://www.solarina.ca/dramaddicts/dramaddicts-blog/2021/7/26/counterpoint-im-not-quite-falling-into-your-smile)