General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Falling Into Your Smile (你微笑时很美)

Falling Into Your Smile (你微笑时很美) is a 31-episode Chinese romantic comedy television drama about professional esports, adapted from the web novel of the same name by Qing Wan (青浼) and starring Xu Kai and Cheng Xiao. It premiered on June 23, 2021 on Tencent Video and Youku, and became one of the most criticized Chinese dramas of the year, falling to a Douban rating of 2.9 out of 10.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	31-episode urban esports romance drama, adapted from Qing Wan's novel of the same name¹
Cast	Xu Kai as team captain Lu Sicheng; Cheng Xiao, of the girl group WJSN (Cosmic Girls), as rookie player Tong Yao¹
Premiere	June 23, 2021, on Tencent Video and Youku³
Plot	Tong Yao becomes the first official female professional player in the Chinese division of the Onmyoji Arena Professional League (OPL) and, with ZGDX, wins the national championship and qualifies for the World Championship, though the drama does not show the team winning a world title or ending the region's six-year world-championship drought⁴^•¹⁷^•¹⁸
Douban rating	Opened at 3.1 on July 4, 2021; fell to 2.9 with roughly 110,000 raters, 77.7% giving one star²
Central controversy	Accusations of plagiarism and "melted memes" (融梗), meaning stitched-together borrowings, from real LPL players' careers, denied by the production team and the novelist⁵
LPL organizer's position	TJ Sports brand and marketing head Feng Xiao stated the series had "no authorization, no cooperation" with the league⁵

Spoilers

Plot and production

The story follows Tong Yao, a talented female gamer who joins the all-male professional team ZGDX after its captain, Lu Sicheng, recruits her. She vows to prove that women can compete at the top level of esports and eventually stands on the world stage, making up for the Chinese League of Legends continental region's six years without a championship.⁴^•⁶

Because of licensing reasons, the television adaptation replaced League of Legends with the mobile game Onmyoji Arena (决战平安京), though the source novel was written around the League of Legends professional scene.⁷ Producer Yang Xia used a game engine with motion capture and 3D modeling to render the in-game sequences, intending to show the barrier between the virtual and real worlds breaking down, though she acknowledged the immature technology did not fully achieve the intended effect.⁸

The plagiarism and prototype controversy

Criticism of the project began before filming. While the novel was still serialized from 2016, esports fans noted that its characters' personas and careers closely matched real players of the LPL, the League of Legends Pro League, China's top professional competition.⁵ The title itself was said to derive from the former ID "你微笑时好美" of Gao Xuecheng, a former WE team player known as WeiXiao, and the male lead's characterization was summarized by fans as combining traits of several well-known LPL players; the female lead Tong Yao was seen as drawing on the player GodV together with the experiences and nickname "童无敌" of player Koro1.⁹^•⁴ Fans compiled lists showing that famous LPL memes and events appeared throughout the novel, calling it an "LPL chronicle."¹⁰

When the drama wrapped filming and its trailer appeared in May 2021, the dispute widened. Feng Xiao, head of brand and marketing at TJ Sports, which operates the LPL, wrote on Weibo that there was "no authorization, no cooperation, but at least please respect the LPL," and the Tencent Esports account posted question-mark emojis in the show's topic thread.⁵ On July 14, 2021, the professional team LGD, which fans suspected of being infringed, issued a statement saying the club would pursue legal responsibility; the statement received more than 100,000 shares, comments, and likes.¹¹ The production company and Qing Wan denied plagiarism, with the novelist declaring "no plagiarism, no melted memes, no stealing of lives, no disrespect to esports," and the show's team later issued a statement acknowledging a gap between the story and viewer expectations while defending its intent to introduce esports to a wider audience.¹¹^•¹²

Criticized depictions of esports

After the June 23 premiere, anger shifted from the novel's origins to the drama's on-screen treatment of competition. The most widely mocked line was the male lead's "three, two, one, engage" countdown before a team fight; commentators explained that professional players must seize openings instantaneously and cannot schedule an engagement by counting down.⁵ Other scenes drew similar objections: a player on the heroine's ex-boyfriend's team deliberately loses matches as a romantic gesture, and in another episode a professional player abandons his match to carry his girlfriend out of the arena after she argues with his fans.³ Viewers also noted players shown playing a mobile game on computers, a team not matching the standard five-versus-five format, and casual treatment of match-fixing.¹¹^•¹³

Well-known figures in the scene joined the criticism. The esports athlete Han Yiying compared the deliberate losing to footballers shooting at their own goals to chase girls, and double WCG champion Li Xiaofeng and former professional player Misaya (Ruofeng) publicly expressed disbelief at the princess-carry scene.³^•⁵ The state-affiliated account People's Esports posted on premiere day quoting viewer comments and telling the screenwriters to "respect electronic sports."¹ Cheng Xiao and her fan club also received malicious comments, and her agency Yuehua Entertainment issued a statement on July 11 condemning the attacks and saying it would take legal measures if the abuse continued.¹²

Reception

The drama's Douban rating opened at 3.1 out of 10 on the evening of July 4, 2021, and fell to 2.9 within a day as roughly 30,000 new ratings arrived on July 5 alone; about 110,000 users had rated it, 77.7% with one star.² By March 2024 Douban showed 3.2 from about 415,000 raters, while IMDb listed 8.2 from about 3,600 users, a split consistent with the show's popularity among romance-drama audiences and its rejection by esports fans.⁸ On Rakuten Viki, where it streamed with subtitles in more than 25 languages, it held a 9.6 user score.¹⁴

Chinese press commentary split along the same line. Tencent Video senior copyright manager Ren Qiang said the series generated considerable resonance and discussion among young female viewers despite the controversy, while China Youth Daily argued that esports dramas that treat the profession as mere decoration for idol-romance plots lower the genre's standard and damage goodwill toward esports itself; Beijing Daily wrote that the show's portrayal of professional players diverged sharply from reality.⁸ The controversy became a reference point for discussion of how Chinese industry dramas should handle specialized professions.¹⁰

International distribution

Despite its domestic reception, the series circulated widely abroad. It streamed on Rakuten Viki with English, Dutch, Slovak, Polish, and more than 20 other subtitle tracks.¹⁴ In August 2026 it premiered on Philippine television through ALLTV, Kapamilya Channel, A2Z, and iWant, described by ABS-CBN as a global hit mixing romance, comedy, friendship, and competitive esports.¹⁵ A 2022 academic study of Chinese dramas on Viki listed it among the platform's Chinese titles reaching global audiences.¹⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Cr to In

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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