Falling Into Your Smile

Hello again drama family!

I hope you have enjoyed the drama reviews so far! I know I enjoy writing up these posts to share with everyone.

The next drama I will be discussing is a new drama by the name of Falling Into Your Smile. I just finished this drama and I felt the need to write about it immediately.

Title: Falling Into Your Smile

Apps: Viki

Release Year: 2021

Region: China

Episode Count: 31

Genres: Romantic comedy, drama, e-sports

This particular drama is a Chinese drama that was release on the Viki app. In order to watch this one, though, you will need a standard membership.

Now, if you enjoy gaming or shows about gaming, then this is the drama for you! I love RPGs, I love playing video games, so this was right up my alley.

Plot: A young woman who enjoys gaming has been recruited to an E-sports team. The only problem is that E-sports is dominated by men, making her the first female to become a part of the competition. Her team is made up of all men, all of whom have varying personalities and degrees of acceptance for her. The drama is about the team reluctantly taking her in and allowing her to be a part of their journey. Over 31 episodes, you get to see them develop as a team and witness the hardships that come with being a celebrity. The genres include romantic comedy, e-sports, and drama.

There are numerous characters involved in this particular drama because of the number of members for each e-sports team that is featured. Many of them are side characters while the main focus is on the captain of team ZGDX and their only female member.

Our ML for this drama is Lu Si Cheng (aka Chessman) played by Xu Kai. This character originally seems reluctant to accept the new female teammate and he seems rather mean. He often seems cold and doesn't communicate much. When he does communicate, it often comes off as harsh or mean. He relies heavily on himself and views himself as solely responsible for the welfare of the team. In reality, he is actually quite caring, but is also very focused on competing.

The FL is Tong Yao (aka Smiling) played by Cheng Xiao. She's not like your typical female lead for a drama. She is cute and girly, which can generally be expected, but she is also sassy, strong, and temperamental. She is an emotional character that does sometimes exhibit fear, but overall she's willing to step up and accept a challenge. She also proves that women can be excellent gamers. Her relationship with the team, as well as fans, is rocky from the start. The team's relationship with her develops over time and she becomes an integral member, helping to change the team for the better.

One thing I loved about this drama is that the romance wasn't an immediate part of it. It took some time for the lead characters to open up to one another and be willing to have a relationship. It explores the hardships that many celebrities face from their fans' expectations of them and how this effects them in their daily lives and relationships. I loved how they also explored the idea that e-sports is not a common career choice, that it is often viewed as an easy career with, as they put in the show, "internet-obsessed teens" just constantly glued to a computer screen. The show combats that view, revealing that it is more than just playing games, it is also time, dedication, and hard work. The parents of the main leads were not majorly overbearing, there were times that I found Lu Si Cheng's mother questionable, but she didn’t make a major appearance throughout the series. Tong Yao's parents were more understanding over time, although her mother did disagree at first and seemed to be overbearing to some extent. The parents weren't exceptionally toxic, they were just concerned for their daughter's wellbeing and future. There were parents in the show of other team members that were more questionable as far as how they treated their children, but they had a minor appearance. I feel like the show explored a lot of things that most people don’t think about with these uncommon career choices. They are hard careers to enter into, there are a lot of concerns from parents of whether that could actually be a money-making career, but that taking chances is something that people need to do when they can.

There was comedy throughout the drama. I cannot tell you how many times I just laughed uncontrollably. Some of the laughter came from the comedy, while some was actually girly giggling over relationship development. I also enjoyed the thrilling competition scenes whenever the teams were competing against one another. They managed to bring an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation to each of those scenes. I was definitely on the edge of my seat for several of them. There were also fun CG scenes featuring characters from the RPG they were playing, allowing you to kind of enter the fantasy world and see the fights as if they were actually happening.

There were repetitive scenarios throughout the drama, that would probably be my only negative thing. There were several things that brought forth negative media attention or negative comments/reactions from fans that effected the team on different levels. The backlash from fans was something that was pretty much throughout the entire series and was generally the main reason for the drama that was featured, although it did come in varying degrees and escalated quite a bit at one point. It's not a major critique of the show, it's something that does happen to public figures a lot, but it was something that happened nearly back to back throughout the episodes. It seemed like the main focus of the drama was the negativity of the fans and how the team dealt with that.

Also, there was a really cute cat named Pancake. I just couldn't get over the fact that his name was Pancake and felt the need to mention it here. Sorry.

I would totally recommend this drama to anyone, especially people who love gaming.

Drama Mama Rating: 8/10 (it kept me engaged through 31 episodes, so I'd say it was really good)