Review of Falling Into Your Smile / 你微笑时很美

For the longest time, I refused to watch Chinese dramas. I think it’s because I was turned off by Meteor Garden, which I found to be so toxic, and the fact I have commitment issues to television series that are longer than twenty episodes.

It’s why I get along so well with the Japanese and Korean dramas. They’re short enough that I can avoid having to commit to them for long periods of time.

What opened the floodgates this time was Only for Love, which I didn’t even think was that good of a show, but for some reason now I’m binge watching all of the Chinese dramas I can get my hands on.

As soon as I finished that show, I logged onto my Netflix, saw Falling Into Your Smile was recommended for me, and then I decided to press play and watch it despite knowing nothing about the show.

And because it was winter break and I was refusing to touch my thesis, I ended up sitting and binge watching all of this show over the course of a couple of days. And trust me, when I say it was worth it, it was so worth it.

Let’s get into the review!

The first professional female e-sports player finds herself in a romance with her team captain.

Our main character in this drama is Tong Yao, who goes by the name of Smiling in the e-sports world. For those of you familiar with League of Legends, I found the game that they’re playing in the drama to be a Chinese version of that, so I felt like I could easily follow along with the more game oriented segments of the drama.

They show the gameplay and animated aspects of the characters fighting throughout the drama, so if you want to understand the game, knowing League is the way to go.

Anyways, Tong Yao is about to replace a member of the gaming team ZGDX, as she’s one of the highest rated mids in the game right now. Her ranking is high enough for them to bring her on, officially making her the first female member of any team in the Chinese League at the time. A good portion of the series is about the sexism, as the drama depicts this world as kind of like fandoms.

There are girls who intensely like certain male members of the team, and show up to all of their competitions.

When Tong Yao first shows up to practices and matches, she kind of has a sense of imposter syndrome, but is willing to work her way up to becoming one of the best in the league. If there’s something really admirable about this female lead, she’s willing to really put in the effort to become the best version of herself when it comes to the game she loves.

It doesn’t help that the team captain, Lu Sicheng, or Chessman, is slyly making moves on her.

By the halfway mark of the series, the two of them are dating and the dirty is definitely implied. I was kind of surprised by that, but I also haven’t watched a ton of Chinese dramas by this point to know if this is normal or not. Check back in with the blog in like six months—I’m sure I’ll have watched at least eight more shows!

Regardless, there are many other side plots going on throughout the series. Whether it’s Tong Yao getting bullied for being a woman, or the chat forums getting really gossipy when it comes to their lives, the pressure is increasing with each episode, especially as the championships are approaching.

Tong Yao’s best friend also has her own arc where she dates another top team’s player, putting her in the crossfire with the fans and chat forums when it’s revealed he buys her designer goods.

I’ve also never watched an e-sports drama before, so I found it really interesting how they strike that balance between the real world and the game itself.

I could see how someone might skip the more e-sports moments, and I honestly debated sometimes skipping the animated parts of the game that didn’t have directly related commentary to the plot of the show. It might not be my cup of tea, if we’re going to be honest, but I can see how other people would love these kinds of shows.

Overall Thoughts

All of this said, I enjoyed this drama a lot. It was a good mix of lighthearted when it came to the romance, but it had its serious moments when addressing the darker sides of fan culture and the Internet.

There’s an implied suicide attempt in the later episodes of the series, which makes for a major trigger warning if you can’t handle discussions on that, but it isn’t shown on-screen nor does it involve any of the main characters directly.

In the end, I’m glad I gave this drama a chance! I am interested to see if Cheng Xiao continues her acting career, and I want to see her acting get better in the future.

She plays Tong Yao off well enough to make it believable, but it kind of felt like the character was going through the same cycle of emotions. There wasn’t a ton of emotional depth, and I couldn’t tell if it was her acting or a weakness in the script.

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