Falling Into Your Smile, the E-sports drama starring Cheng Xiao and Xu Kai premiered with lots of fanfare and expectations from the viewers. Afterall, the story is modelled after real life e-sports stars who already have an established fanbase.
Yet, the overall reception was less than ideal, as the drama received dismal 3/10 score on its Douban page. The reason for the low ratings was due to the outrage by fans who argue that the drama was a false portrayal of the real life e-sports stars, who focussed as much on winning the gaming competitions rather than the trivial love affairs.
On weibo, the hashtag “Falling Into Your Smile Ratings” have triggered a fresh wave of discussions from netizens regarding their view of the show.
Let’s take a look at whether they thought the score for the drama is justified.
Netizens Discuss Douban Reviews for “Falling Into Your Smile”
A weibo influencer posed the following question, “Is The Score 3.0 Too High Or Too Low For the Drama?”
Source: (1)
Netizens react:
Encouraging fake matches, insulting fans, saying that you are shooting e-sports but insulting e-sports throughout. If it is a circle of things you like, can you tolerate it? Friends, basically speaking for this drama, you can see that it is the marketing account of the bad money. You can unfollow or delete it. Please don’t think that you are just watching a drama, but in fact this is fueling capital and plagiarism. There is no need to become an accomplice of plagiarism [+29 000]
There is still room [for the ratings] to drop [+23 000]
It means that the competitors are not working hard enough [to make the score drop] [+10 900]
It’s quite high [+10200]
The male protagonist scolds the female protagonist as short, frustrated, and like a pig. Fans: So handsome.The boy promotes the counterfeit match to the female lead, the fan: Wow~ It’s great for her too. [+9620]
For me 3 points is already quite high [+5824]
Resist plagarized dramas, you’ve plagarized beautifully. [The commenter also attached a photo with the real e-sports stars the story was modelled after, with the caption, ‘They have the gold medals on their chest, and the national flag on their backs. Please respect China’s e-sports!!!’] [+3162]
Proud of writing original works ♥️ ♥️ Shame on plagiarism and fusion ❌ ❌ Proud to prepare before the game ♥️ ♥️ Shame of [an empahsis on love] before the game ❌ ❌ Proud of starting with strength ♥️ ♥️ Shame of playing on the court ❌ ❌ I am proud to go to the competition seriously ♥️ ♥️ Ashamed of promoting fake competitions ❌ ❌ I am proud to be on the stage to win the championship ♥️ ♥️ Shame on simply sitting on the podium ❌ ❌ Proud to refuse to watch trash dramas ♥️ ♥️ Ashamed of plagiarism dramas ❌ ❌ [+3007]
This drama not only plagiarizes Rongji, from characters, deeds, ID to music, team uniforms, team logos, but does not know how to copy the hard work and hard work of this industry. It eats the glories of the e-sports and insults the entire e-sports industry. Can you win the championship just by eating, drinking, having fun and falling in love without training hard? Can you leave the game for your girlfriend during the game? There is no such thing as a hyping up a “fake competition”, there is no competitive sports spirit and respect for the industry. Nothing more to say. [+2322]
Another Weibo influencer wrote, “Although the score is only 3.0, but the show was quite sweet, Lu Sicheng strength protect his partner, let’s all watch this cute pair! [Attached a video from the drama of the two main couple pairing]”
Source (2)
Netizens react:
You guys yxh have set up a resurrection armor for you [+4949]
It’s 2.9, the competition is still not working hard enough [+2683]
So awkward [+798]
Stop buying [promotional posts], you’ve plagarized beautifully. [+685]
Only 3.0?? It’s still 3.0!!!! Not in a rush to [rate it low] *puke emoji* [+717]
No words, I’ve never seen such an awkward drama [+245]
Is There A Reason For Such A Negative Reception?
While we’ve attempted to find comments that reflect both good and bad opinions about the show, a majority of the Weibo comments have not been positive. International drama viewers may find this puzzling, as the show appears to be perfectly executed with a strong cast and storyline.
This may be due to the cultural difference surrounding the show, and the Chinese viewer’s emotional attachment to the actual E-sports team that inspired the show. Imagine having your real life childhood hero getting portrayed in a drama as someone who is more involved in his romantic pursuits rather than what he is known for. For Chinese netizens who also count the E-sports hero as their idols, this is most probably the feeling they get after watching the drama.
This is not to say the drama is bad, but rather if you do not have any prior attachments to the real life character that inspired the drama, this might be just the one that you might like.
Once again, the Douban reviews are scores given purely by the Chinese audience. Taste and preference varies with geography and cultural differences. You should still check out the drama to see if it is up to your taste, afterall, the cast and singers are incredibly talented.
Whatever, they’re unreasonable af. They want the show to promote only the good parts of e-sports. Brainless gamers
What ever Falling into your smile is a cool drama, and truly gives a life lesson experiences how to handle struggles and how to face it.
Everyone have to watch YouTube, tik tok comments because a lot of persons around the world really loved this drama and we want a 2 season.
Writing from India. This drama is very well received here. I just loved watching it. Hope it to be back with season 2 the hope for which kind of looks hazy now.