The first thing that struck me was the title – Renascence. Should not it be spelled “renaissance” instead? Regardless of this pointless conundrum, the two words have the same meaning – rebirth or born again – and that is the gist of this whole 36-episode C-drama. A near dying Yao Mo Xin switched body with her younger sister and the born again Mo Xin in Mo Wan’s body plotted her revenge for her purported injustice.

While not qualified to judge whether the acting was great or not, there were several scenes that gave me absolute chills. When Jun Qing found out that Mo Xin had died, the wailing was so over the top. Rather than feeling sorry for him for the loss of his true love, I tried very hard not to burst into laughter. Similarly, Jun Qing’s nonchalant reaction when he finally got to meet Mo Xin in the final episode was forgettable and reminded me of a scene from “The Love that Last Two Minds” when Alan Yu – the epitome of bad acting – stood expressionless as he was reunited with Chen Yuqi.

The first c-drama that I watched with Li Mozhi as the leading lady, and her performance has not converted me into an instant fan yet. Like all leading ladies in c-drama, she is a beauty. To be honest, I prefer Eva Cheng (Mo Xin) as the FL. I thought Chen Zhe Yuan’s performance in “Handsome Siblings” was much better with a likeable happy-go-lucky character. Here, he was a miserable soul who engaged in an illicit relationship with his brother’s wife – unabashedly amoral and not cool. No A-list actors here with none featured in the Forbes China Top-100 celebrity list; so straight away c-drama fans knew this is a low-mid budget drama.

This drama lacks character development and depth. Other than the main leads and the Emperor, all other supporting casts suffered from superficial character development and appeared trite. This flaw was probably due to bad editing from 70 episodes to almost half, or the overdependence on the 2 main protagonists. I prefer c-dramas like “Ever Night” or “Novoland – Eagle Flag” where there were various main plots, and screen time is shared across all actors. Significant characters were introduced midway, or some characters were killed half-way like “Nirvana in Fire 2”. As a hardcore historical costume drama viewer, it is easy to get into the drama in the beginning. The story is fresh and you are anticipating plot twists here and there with unexpected turns of events, but as the story matures, it gets harder to keep the interest up. That is why unexpected ending like “Goodbye My Princess”,”Sword Dynasty” or “Bloody Romance” is very much welcome. This story however has an expected banal ending.

This C-drama was filmed mostly at Hengdian World Studio and some of the shots like the high-wall corridor (entrance to Qin Imperial Palace), buildings, parks, etc should be familiar sights to C-drama buffs. When the actions ventured outdoor, the scenery was mostly uninteresting and nondescript. There was no beautiful mountain scenery, breath-taking lake, lush green forest, clear blue river, etc - just shrubs and bushes in secondary jungles. In short, the c-drama setting was average at best and I could hardly remember any scene that could make me to revisit some of the episodes.

Now, to what I consider the weakest aspect of this drama – the storyline. For some reasons, c-dramas always suffer from shoddy writing, disjointed storyline that is short on common-sense, outright ridiculous plots/subplots and plenty of self-sacrificing (suicides). The story relied heavily on the 2 main characters, which meant that there was an over-exposure to them. In my view, a c-drama losses its appeal once the lead couple, who should invariably be in love, hogs the airtime. The main characters fell in love, had a fallout, fell in love again, had a fall out again, (you get the drift) and finally a happy ending. Interject that love dance with a bit of palace drama within the harem motivated by Mo Wan’s revenge, the rebel uprising by the rightful heir (Jun Qing) basically, you get the whole gist of “Renascence”.

For god-sake, the Emperor had plenty of opportunities to kill Jun Qing, but just did not have the brain power to execute the simplest of move. When Jun Qing was stabbed by Mo Wan and was dying, the Emperor inexplicably saved him. The ending was telegraphed from episode 31 onwards after Jun Qing survived a meek attempt by the Emperor to kill Jun Qing with his own hand/sword. The Emperor had countless opportunities to kill Jun Qing easily but chose the most inopportune time when Jun Qing had the protection of his henchmen – Ben Lei and Yin Xue. Talked about stupid timing! Throughout the 36 episodes, the Emperor behaved like a retard; somebody who couldn’t even plan and execute the easiest of move to get rid of his rival, whereas Mo Wan executed all her moves to perfection. With such screen-writing, no wonder I just could not get into the drama, and completing 36 episodes was just a perfunctory exercise. Drop it? Not an option especially after I went past 10 or more episodes.

Don’t get me wrong – “Renaissance” is not a complete dud. If it is, I would not have completed the drama. But I would not re-watch it; I would rather take my chance on a new historical costume c-drama.
Story - 7.0/10
Acting - 8.0/10
Music - 7.5/10
Rewatch value - 5.0/10
Overall - 7.5/10

Overall Verdict 7.5/10. Only for hardcore historical c-drama fans (like me) who don’t have anything better to do.