Escape from the Trilateral Slopes 边水往事 is a thrilling survival adventure drama adapted from Shen Xingxing's autobiographical account of his year in The Golden Triangle. The Golden Triangle is a large mountainous terrain at the confluence of the Mekong and Ruak rivers and is comprised of northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Thailand and northern Laos, bordering Yunnan. Despite multiple coordinated crackdown efforts, The Golden Triangle has long been the world's largest drug producing area; initially of opium and subsequently synthetic drugs, especially methamphetamines. It is also a hot bed of related illegal activities from timbering to gambling and is a lawless place where local warlords control different territories and businesses. Names of places and people have been changed to protect the guilty so for the purposes of this drama, the Golden Triangle is Sanbianpo and the story opens in Monung, in the fictional Republic of Bomo. Meticulous research and attention to detail is evident in the world building, to the point of inventing local dialects and written languages. As impressive as this effort is, I would have preferred they staged it in the real respective Southeast Asian countries. However, unlike Hollywood, Chinese productions shy away excessively from portraying other countries and nationalities in an unflattering way. @Frost_edelweiss has meticulously documented this production and the setting in the discussion section for those interested in more details.

Shen Xing decides to skip college to join his uncle's construction company and shows up unannounced in Monung, to his uncle's dismay. He quickly discovers that Sanbianpo is no tropical paradise but a complicated, sunny place for shady people. To collect on bad debts, his uncle ventures into a conflict zone and disappears, leaving Shen Xing to hold the fort. Facing a liquidity crunch, Shen Xing borrows money from loan sharks at usurious rates to make payroll. Things snowball as desperate to find his uncle, he gets involved with counterfeiters and finds himself framed for murder. Before he knows it, he is a fugitive fleeing many different forces. He ends up indebted to Uncle Cai, a wheeler-dealer businessman who juggles the various competing forces in Sanbianpo. Thus Shen Xing becomes the patsy that Uncle Cai nonchalantly sends off on increasingly perilous missions. Before long, he is finds himself embroiled in all aspects of the Sanbianpo economy; sending provisions to drug dealers, smuggling gems, cattle farming; timbering, gambling; everything short of drug trafficking. That is Uncle Cai and his men's bottom line; the one they vowed not to cross. The story highlights how divisive the drug trade is; with some forced into it by poverty or conscription while others doggedly avoid it after losing loved ones to its trade or use.

I am pleased to see Guo Qilin step out of his comfort zone to take on this role of Shen Xing. And he delivers an acceptable portrayal overall but one that is lacking on several notable fronts. For starters, he doesn't look the part so it is a stretch to imagine he is hardy or athletic enough to survive numerous life endangering encounters. To make matters worse, it is absurd to pair him up romantically with a lanky actress like Qi Xi; even though she pulls off her role well, I cringed through that entire arc. He does a credible job humorously portraying the bewildered, naive young man who looks into the abyss and only manages to survive by sheer luck. His critical fail is in conveying what happens when the abyss looks into you. His character stays largely the same throughout and in moments of trauma, dumbfounded tends to be his default expression. This stands at sharp contrast with young actor Zhao Runnan's compelling portrayal of Guo Limin's shattering darkening and psychological downfall. What saves the day is there is fantastic rapport between the entire cast and Shen Xing's relationships with Uncle Cai, Dan Tuo, Wang Anquan, Lan Bo and even the hapless Justin seem authentic and moving enough to make me root for all of them. His enemies into besties relationship with Dan Tuo and how Dan Tuo silently looks out for him is one of the highlights of the story. Jiang Qilin is a fantastic actor and his Dan Tuo stole the show for me and is the unsung hero of the story. I also thoroughly enjoyed Jiang Qiming's hilarious portrayal of jack-of-all trades in the middle of all scams Wang Anquan as well. The villains are satisfyingly nasty and heinous; from the duplicitous Ang Tan to the viciously scary and hateful Mao Pan. While I wish they had cast a stronger character actor like a Liu Haoran as Shen Xing, the entire cast is so exceptional that their riveting portrayals paper over most of Guo Qilin's shortcomings.

The enigmatic, utterly ruthless and diabolically charismatic Uncle Cai is the lynchpin of this story. He is the most fascinating, multi-faceted character in the story. At surface, he is pragmatic, reasonable, an incredibly devout Buddhist and loyal to his wife's memory; a ruthless businessman when he needs to be but one with a bottom line. Thus he is not a villain for the sake of villainy but only when it serves his purpose; there is a utilitarian calculus involved in every action and decision. He doesn't hide who he is or what he is about but this is masked by his devoutness and humble persona and how he disarmingly switches between Cantonese, Mandarin and local dialects to best convey his sincerity. Only a highly skilled veteran actor like Francis Ng can deliver such a mesmerising portrayal. Like Shen Xing, Dan Tuo and his many followers, I was so dazzled, almost spellbound by his personal charisma that I didn't look too hard at his actions. He callously sends Shen Xing out on missions without full information but seems so wholeheartedly delighted that he survives time and again that I forget that he is the guy that tossed him in the frying pan and turned on the fire at the same time. Uncle Cai holds his cards close to the chest and never explains himself unless he has to. The drama respects audience intelligence and leaves it to the viewer to figure out how he manipulates situations and outcomes. This is a character that keeps you guessing until the end that can only be fully understood upon (multiple) rewatches.

The narrative builds to a shocking and thrilling climax and the ending is chilling and realistic. This drama has fantastic production values and movie like cinematography. It is riveting, thrilling and unpredictable from start to finish and sets a high bar future Chinese suspense and adventure thrillers. A must-watch that I am happy to rate 8.5/10.0. I knocked off 0.5 to be fair because as much as I like Guo Qilin, it is impossible to deny that the key role of Shen Xing is mis-cast. It is the dramas only real flaw.