I wasn’t planning on writing anything about Falling Into Your Smile, but the particularly high rating it’s gotten on MyDramaList (a whopping 8.7/4757 users at the time of writing) and Rakuten Viki (9.5/13,881 users) by a statistically significant enough number of viewers compelled me to offer a counterpoint.

First, to be clear, I liked this drama. It was perfectly fine — good even. 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. 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, whom I saw in Sweet First Love (甜了青梅配竹马) and Ancient Detective (侠探简不知) respectively, this was my first drama for the rest of the cast, including Xu Kai (a sometimes-distracting reminder of a young Leonardo DiCaprio), whose name has been coming up everywhere I turn lately.

I also appreciated that the show tackled and highlighted the absolutely batsh*t extremes fans and haters go to attack people through social media and how online discourse can be dominated by wildly irrational views. It captured the breadth of opinions, the viciousness with which people can turn on an individual, and underscored the influence of toxic fans — something we’ve seen play out in real life. (I was originally thinking of what happened to Xiao Zhan, which I had previously blogged about here and here. The online “drama” playing out among Chinese netizens and esports fans absolutely trashing Falling Into Your Smile, however, 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, the definitive database site in China for music, movie and book reviews and discussions, 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. The fan comments on social media depicted in Falling Into Your Smile seemed surprisingly blunt by C-drama standards. Even the mom tried to address the subject in a round about way with her daughter (which is definitely something completely foreign to my own real life experiences and those of most of my Asian friends!).

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 was all 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, especially when it came to the actual gaming scenes (I believe they were also playing Onmyoji Arena) — unlike most other esports dramas I’ve watched. Even so, I remember being genuinely excited by their success at the end.

• Most of the acting in Falling Into Your Smile was fine, but I wasn’t exactly wowed either, even with Xu Kai. I see potential though and do look forward to watching them again in a number of past and upcoming dramas, 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 and a 9.5? Nope. For me, that would require a more complex story arc that invites emotional commitment, and there are more deserving, but lower-rated dramas out there, esports and otherwise, who fit the bill.

April 2022 update: I finally watched King’s Avatar earlier this year, which I also think is a better esports drama — despite the painful dubbing, despite starring Yang Yang (sorry!), and despite the lack of romance (if you are partial to that).