In an underwhelming world, where the sky is sometimes too cloudy to make out the stars, and where you can’t reach the top without falling, a group of individuals come together, find the good through the bad, and attempt to strive in a big and unfamiliar world that constantly tries to push them away.

If not to be praised for its lengthy and heavy plot, the series’ memorable cinematography and beautiful soundtrack will surely leave an everlasting impression on viewers. Humoristique, heartfelt, and a critique of today’s workaholic society—’Smile Code’ succeeds with satisfying ease in balancing out aspects that lean into the slice-of-life genre with elements of silliness and fun. The drama presents a refreshing twist on falling in love, with characters who fill the space in each other’s arms as though they are destined to come together despite their differences in lifestyle, personality, and outlook on life. It follows the compelling story of two individuals who try to navigate their relationship around the emotional distance that separates them, proving that love knows no barriers and that it presents itself in different variations. It is not a set feeling, but something abstract that is hard to understand and fully grasp the concept of without experiencing it firsthand.

Gu Yi, passionate and full of determination, is searching for her own definition of love. By getting closer to the one causing her the feeling, she gains a better understanding of herself and the concept of love. As the distance between them slowly closes on her end, Liang Dai Wen is experiencing this same exploration of oneself, but is forced to deal with trying to understand the entirety of his feelings—for the world and the girl he loves. The male lead will be forced to face his trauma head-on if he’s willing to understand not just his own feelings, but also those of the people around him. Together, he and Gu Yi serve as a perfect portrayal of the devotion, compassion, and effort that is required to keep and build a healthy relationship. The reasons behind their eventual separation, along with Gu Yi’s belief that "love is precious only when it's a little bit; otherwise, it's a disaster", resonate with the idea that these qualities can equally destroy a relationship as much as they can create one.

Lin Yi effectively embodied his cold role as Liang Dai Wen in a way that made his character feel heavy, with a smile dragged down by the weight of the world. This is fitting for the series, considering its overall message, which is to find a guide, or a code to unlock a smile. Due to his trouble in identifying, processing and expressing emotion, his creativity is overlooked as it is not regarded as ‘creative’ in a typical way. Rather than representing his empathic and artistic outlook of life in his art using music or painting, it is expressed through his feeling of needing to help others. His character is creative and artistic in an innovative way, capable of thinking from the perspective of others to create something that'll reflect them and their needs in everyday life, whereas music or art is more individualistic, with the artist creating based on their own perspective and experiences.

The side characters are all equally as enriching to the series. Remarkably, its second female lead, Guan Xing Xin, indirectly addresses the burden of the misogynistic, suppressive, conservative, and close-minded aspects of Chinese society. This is explored through modern-day problems concerning celebrity images and cyberbullying, as well as the public unwilling to understand her side of the story in a scandal. Her outlook on life differs from others as she was born visually impaired; completely blind. The unique perspective that she presents through her telling of her experience of gaining sight gives viewers unique remarks on life itself and of the human being’s ingrained and innate fear of being observed, perceived, judged, and critiqued.

Though she may seem misplaced at first, among the others in the series who are perhaps more visibly struggling, with debt to pay off, and no place to call home, she still draws many parallels to them despite her wealth and fame. Guan Xing Xin is actually just as morally lost as the other individuals presented are, searching for her place in the world. Even though her life seems simple and already set up for her by those in her surroundings, she rather feels suffocated and constrained by these expectations, and stolen of freedom. Despite being certain that her current life is not fit for her, she struggles to break free from it and pursue a new direction in life, not yet truly knowing her own self, her limits, and what she wants. Her similarity with those around her who are less wealthy showcases how everyone has their own battles to fight no matter their circumstances, and that one should not be so quick to judge. Altogether, the characters form a realistic portrait of people who feel like they don’t live up to society’s standards for one reason or another, enhancing the series’ underlying theme of struggling urban youths.

Gu Yi, the female lead, catches the male lead’s eye first with her positive attitude. Liang Dai Wen feels entranced by the bright smile she chooses to wear despite her day-to-day struggles. At night, her smile radiates a sense of freeness under the stars like a twinkle amidst the busy streets of the bustling city. In the day, he sees her face morph into more stoic expressions, and witnesses how hard she works to carry the weight of her daily struggles. This contributes to Liang Dai Wen finding her smile's beauty more admirable and brighter than ever, furthermore drawing him into her strong pull. The contrast between her life in the day and during the night is something Liang Dai Wen struggles to understand. Because of his emotional condition, he can’t experience the duality of being practical in the day, and free, exasperated, and relieved at night. His lack of understanding intrigues him to give her a space in his life, because he has always been told that feelings can truly be felt only once they have been observed. Though he yearns to be observant and understanding of Gu Yi, his encounters with her brings him down and gives him the unconscious realization that there's something missing in his life.

"A human soul only weighs one ounce" is the quote of the comedy night club where Gu Yi works. This is probably in reference to an experiment led by a believer that a soul holds a physical weight, and who strived to determine if this was true or not, before coming to the conclusion that a soul weighed almost an ounce because that was the weight that left their body when they died. Of course, this theory has never been scientifically proven, but in the context of this series that explores the struggles faced by urban youths, this ideology can be interpreted that the human soul is light, and so it is easy to push around into a spiral of turmoil or hardship, as it is simple to alleviate this weight by wearing a smile. It highlights the human’s sole insignificance in the world, and how adapting this outlook on life that we are so little and overall insignificant can make us feel more free and weightless. Not only can this shift one’s perspective, but it can also allow one to embody their feelings better and wear them with great pride for the little joys experienced. When Liang Dai Wen says he’s searching for his ounce of a soul, he’s perhaps looking for the lively part of him that he’ll lose once he dies, as he is already a detached and cold-hearted person.

In the middle of the series, Liang Dai Wen has a breakthrough, reflecting deeply on his own self for the first time. These realizations are crucial for his character development and the choices he makes later on. He notices that whenever he sees Gu Yi smile, his wrist hurts, recalling how her smile never ceased to shine brightly in his memory. This wrist pain of his is ultimately a physical manifestation of his emotional incapacity to have feeling. Whenever the pain flares up, he is deprived from the opportunity to experience mundane human things, such as driving. This builds on the series’ main theme, which is alexithymia, and strengthens the focus on his inability to differentiate between physical and emotional pain.

At some point, Gu Yi mirrors his own behaviour in the way she decides to interact with him. She approaches the matters that bother her head-on, hoping that he will understand her better. The physical pain she causes him in the moment where she squeezes his hurt hand, telling him to remember how he feels in the moment, mirrors the internal pain he feels when she gives him back the pain he caused her. He pushes her away, shifting back into the cold and detached version of himself he has been stuck in since years ago, retreating into his old habit of using emotional numbness as a shield. His departure with Gu Yi only adds to his pile of regrets, alongside those he feels regarding his past and his Mom. His obsession with clinging on to the memory of things he has abandoned hints at his desire to stay in the past. Instead of trying to let go or welcome back into his life the things he misses, he just floats in the middle of these two options, numbing himself to emotion. But now, with Gu Yi, he has to make a move, make decisions based on what he wants—not just out of practicality like he usually does. He has to allow himself to be guided by his own emotions, because he can’t expect Gu Yi to wait for him forever.

The rollercoaster of emotion intensifies following the leads’ separation. Gu Yi, once full of innocent smiles and laughter, gains a new perspective on life through this experience and starts to understand Liang Dai Wen’s dissociation from all forms of emotion. She offers a unique interpretation to what she feels was a one-sided romance, explaining that the break up didn’t exactly happen between them, since their feelings for one another haven’t changed. Instead, it can be found in every moment they spent together—shifting from sweet memories to times they now wished to forget. Their bittersweet separation offers a taste of the series’ overall hopeful yet realistic portrayal of life in early adulthood. Filled with scenes that will tug at your heart and draw tears, it captures life from an interesting angle.

The series’ visual aspect beautifully mirrors its essence, enhancing the emotional delivery to viewers. The cinematography is especially visually pleasing, and its nightly setting highlights the little but bright beauty that light holds when it peeks through the darkness. Something about the mostly dark city setting causes feelings of excitement, bringing more intimacy to the leads’ interactions and allowing their love to shine amidst the night’s darkness. The soundtrack is diverse and beautiful, reliant on piano keys to bring its melodies afloat, allowing the songs to convey a light but determined touch to the series. This enhances the series’ overall vibe, a heaviness coupled with little bits of hope—because beauty can not exist without deep and heavy feelings such as despair and sadness.

With noteworthy lines, thought-provoking quotes, and metaphorical comparisons, ‘Smile Code’ outshines its ‘rom-com’ genre by fueling its romance and bits of comedy using everyday happenings and aspects that moreover resemble those of the slice-of-life genre. "Isn't it sad that we operate like machines?" is a line shared to Gu Yi by Xu Guan Rui, someone who pursues an opposite life to hers—one with artistic and metaphorical value. It was said in the context of humans overworking without the acknowledgement of how much their drive for money and place in society is shielding away typical human creative expression and search for meaning in life. It compares this dehumanizing nature of overwork and the way people oftenly get so obsessed with practicality, routines, or survival to a robot, void of freedom, expression of oneself, and emotion. Gu Yi makes a reflection on these words, perhaps comparing it to Liang Dai Wen, who she considers robot-like because of his neurological disorder that limits his range of emotion and gives him the inability to feel or process feelings or seek true human connections. Since the show's focus is struggling youths in Shanghai—a very big, fast-moving, and competitive city—this is fitting because it is easy to learn to suppress our emotions in order to thrive. One can easily get swept up in only living in the goal of surviving to abide by the mold societal pressure tries to fit them into, making it easy to turn a blind eye to the human need for connections.

In the same train of thought, Xu Guan Rui also encourages Gu Yi to take a pause on what’s truly worth pursuing, and to question herself on why she is living her life in this rushed way that doesn’t make her happy or give her a particular sense of fulfillment in terms of her emotional needs, implying that she orient her goals to something more self-fulfilling. Her lacking response suggests that she hasn’t given it much thought, drawing a parallel between her character and people living under similarly current societal pressures and letting their need for money dictate their way of living. The comparison gives her a better sense of understanding of Liang Dai Wen, who she once thought so different. It enables her to see how she also embodies some of the qualities she thought were robot-like and depressing, such as following the cycle of routines, and acting based on practicality rather than emotions. And since she attributes these struggles of hers to pain, and relies on the creative expression of laughter as a painkiller, she feels for the male leads’ burdens in life since he has no resort that frees him from his struggles.

Essentially, the story conveys the idea that a love that grows slowly is more special than a spontaneous type of love. Its spark never dies because the memories continue to grow on each other, instead of leaving behind something beautiful that is only worth reminiscing about. It is a must-watch series that is heartbreaking as much as it is healing and refreshing to the soul.