With managed expectations, it can be a cute rom-com without the unnecessary conflicts
Disclaimer: I have already come across a lot of Falling into Your Smile clips on Facebook and Instagram before I picked up the series, so I dived into the drama knowing what would happen in certain scenes, more or less. With this, I had anticipated that the romance aspect wouldn’t have much effect on me, taking into account the “immunity” I thought I developed from watching a lot of spoiler videos. Surprisingly, I still felt the butterflies—and loads of them.
The love story is definitely the strongest point and the highlight of this drama. Even with scenes that I have already watched a number of times before, I still found myself pausing some episodes just so I could take my time to breathe and recover, as the fluttering sensation in my stomach got a bit overwhelming.
Xu Kai’s portrayal of the tsundere, cold, taciturn male lead was decent—I can see he tried his best depicting the subtle shifts in expressions, which felt natural and nothing over-the-top.
The romance aspect is undeniably in full swing. So much so that the male lead fell too fast and hard, which also makes the relationship arc as one of the major flaws of the series.
In the first meetings and episodes, the male lead was already giving the female lead a kind of special treatment to some extent, without any (pre-)established notion. This left no room for the development of the romance structure: the male lead almost went all in, like he was already in love with female lead from the get-go, failing to provide the viewers the journey of getting to know and falling in love.
Another flaw of this series is Cheng Xiao’s portrayal of the female lead. Sadly, her unamused eye expressions do not help the audience distinguish the emotions she was trying to portray. With this, I think it was Xu Kai who carried the romance and made it work.
Other than this, the pacing and writing are quite decent: the series started with a narrator ala Gossip Girl, seemingly in charge of an online e-sports gossip platform, who helped establish in setting the story and introducing the characters. The narrator is not omnipresent in the entire series, as a switch in perspective/point of view between the leads is observed, but it was a good tool in storytelling.
As someone with zero background in e-sports, the series still got me engaged even during the actual games. While I have no absolute understanding of what was happening during the competitions, I was still able to enjoy and take part in the team camaraderie.
I appreciate how the games have their own animations as well and I didn’t feel the need to know the technicalities of the games, such as its purpose and characters, as I feel this could make the story unnecessarily convoluted.
There were also no unnecessary conflicts and filler episodes, which I really like, and the second leads and secondary characters have had the chance to resolve their own conflicts.
Overall, there is nothing extraordinary nor unique in the series, but this will make a good choice if you are looking for an easy watch, modern rom-com without the unnecessary filler dramas.
The love story is definitely the strongest point and the highlight of this drama. Even with scenes that I have already watched a number of times before, I still found myself pausing some episodes just so I could take my time to breathe and recover, as the fluttering sensation in my stomach got a bit overwhelming.
Xu Kai’s portrayal of the tsundere, cold, taciturn male lead was decent—I can see he tried his best depicting the subtle shifts in expressions, which felt natural and nothing over-the-top.
The romance aspect is undeniably in full swing. So much so that the male lead fell too fast and hard, which also makes the relationship arc as one of the major flaws of the series.
In the first meetings and episodes, the male lead was already giving the female lead a kind of special treatment to some extent, without any (pre-)established notion. This left no room for the development of the romance structure: the male lead almost went all in, like he was already in love with female lead from the get-go, failing to provide the viewers the journey of getting to know and falling in love.
Another flaw of this series is Cheng Xiao’s portrayal of the female lead. Sadly, her unamused eye expressions do not help the audience distinguish the emotions she was trying to portray. With this, I think it was Xu Kai who carried the romance and made it work.
Other than this, the pacing and writing are quite decent: the series started with a narrator ala Gossip Girl, seemingly in charge of an online e-sports gossip platform, who helped establish in setting the story and introducing the characters. The narrator is not omnipresent in the entire series, as a switch in perspective/point of view between the leads is observed, but it was a good tool in storytelling.
As someone with zero background in e-sports, the series still got me engaged even during the actual games. While I have no absolute understanding of what was happening during the competitions, I was still able to enjoy and take part in the team camaraderie.
I appreciate how the games have their own animations as well and I didn’t feel the need to know the technicalities of the games, such as its purpose and characters, as I feel this could make the story unnecessarily convoluted.
There were also no unnecessary conflicts and filler episodes, which I really like, and the second leads and secondary characters have had the chance to resolve their own conflicts.
Overall, there is nothing extraordinary nor unique in the series, but this will make a good choice if you are looking for an easy watch, modern rom-com without the unnecessary filler dramas.
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