Sigh. This has been a sadly disappointing and underwhelming journey. I’ve been waiting almost a year and a half for this drama to come out, thrilled to see Xu Kai in a modern drama (just because he slayed Arsenal Military Academy). But unfortunately, despite all the hype, I was left completely underwhelmed and frustrated throughout Falling into your Smile, and alas it just fell flat on its face. I know this drama received rave reviews, and I myself tried my best to view it as objectively as I could, but be forewarned, unpopular opinions ahead.

PROBLEMS

--The Storyline Itself--
I think the major turn off for this drama was its inseverable relationship with the internet/social media and how the toxicity of the online environment negatively impacted and influenced the characters. It was a major recurring theme throughout the drama and just felt over the top rather than impactful.

What made the story fall flat was the constant emphasis on the e-sports online forum being at the center of everything. Every time something was posted, over a number of episodes, we would follow the characters reactions and responses whether that be trying to mitigate the negative effects or finding a solution. And this sort of drama kept popping up and detracted from the storyline itself, the relationships between our characters and the actual e-sports competition. It left little time to properly explore team dynamics and character interactions. It felt like they were all being controlled by the comments of their fans and rather than promoting e-sports as a proud national sport that actually rather emphasised to their detriment the toxicity and negativity of the online environment, fans and their comments. And after awhile it got old and I felt frustrated, because it was obvious there would be a never ending onslaught attack on them and they just couldn’t catch a break to actually focus on what was important e.g. hand injuries, the feeling of winning, relationship and love, friendship and bonding etc.

The love story itself, for me, Lu Si Cheng fell too fast and too hard for Tong Yao and I felt it was completely unfounded. Though everyone’s been saying their chemistry was great, for me personally, I just couldn’t feel it. The bickering or banter dialogue lacked wit and class, and just felt plain boring and basic. And the whole height difference joke got old after awhile. It was a real struggle getting through the first 10+ episodes and I actually took a break from it. And sure it picked up when they started the kissing, but it just felt like a lack lustre relationship.

--The Game--
I really liked how we went into the gaming world, switching into the animations and really entered the game world. However, it stopped at that. The lack of explanation of: what was actually happening (they often just put up visuals of the game play and we had to decipher what was actually happening), the rules of the game and the avatar capabilities made the gaming scenes so much more confusing. The question on my mind was why where there so many competitions and which ones were actually important? There was no helpful commentary, no strategy for that matter and everyone kept switching game avatars that it made it so hard for me to keep up with who was playing who. This kept me distant from the gaming world, in addition to the games being entirely anti-climatic and very predictable. I think my main concern was that the competition gaming scenes felt like supplementary scenes to fill the main storyline rather than being the focal point, left on the backburner because there were so many other external problems at hand.

--Acting/Cast--
I’m sorry to say that I had issues with the acting and cast. I felt Xu Kai was pigeon-holed into this character of being tight faced and cold and tried his absolute best to bring some life into it, especially being one of his first modern dramas. I liked his characterisation and even development, from being well aware and acknowledging his flaws. Props to his ep18 7 minute monologue, that was some well written tight script writing that got his character and thoughts across really well.
Cheng Xiao as Tong Yao I thought was miscast and the only thing that worked was the height difference. Her acting felt expressionless, rigid and lacked the right emotion for the scenes. I couldn’t make out her character. I didn't really feel any character development, and she came across as arrogant, unapologetically righteous, and too easily influenced.

--Lost Potential--
They had an array of beautiful, lovable and ready crafted side characters, that were sadly dismissed as unimportant and majorly underutilised. In particular, Yu Ming (who had like one major scene in the beginning and then used as a side prop, despite having so much character potential to be explored), Lu Yue (brother dynamics that would have offered more insight into Lu Si Cheng's character), and Hierophant (this relationship was so fleeting and I don't know why, it could have been so well good if developed). These are such interesting side characters, I only wish their backstories and motivations were explored further, it would have helped craft rich characters and round off the team dynamics.


I think overall what got me was they were trying to cram too much into the storyline – while competing for the national title, juggling the pressures of social media and being a figurehead, the resistance of parents viewing e-sports as a mere game, managing the dynamics of the team, family relations and building a fresh relationship from scratch. All this in addition to the poor scriptwriting that felt flat and lacked the depth of clever conversation.

It’s honestly great to see an increasing number of e-sports dramas framing national pride come out on mainstream, as we learn and uncover more about the struggles and behind the scene challenges. I appreciate the drama’s vision and liked the world it was attempting to create both off and online, but just in this instance, it fell far from my expectations and I was left sorely disappointed.