Both belong to the Youku "White Night Theater" series, and deal with drugs cartels, although Escape from the Trilateral Slopes doesn't focus on the drugs trade before the last episodes. The First Shot is about the rise of new (then) drugs, such as ecstasy and methamphetamine, starting flood into China all the way to the distant north, the Dongbei area. There, a new task force to combat the threat is being formed with a core of young, skilled police officers specializing in different sides of investigations. Being close to many ordinary citizens in their age group and family circles, they find themselves not just handed a task, but painfully and personally implicated, when a sister and friends get force-fed drugs, and a young thug wavers between loyalty to the drugs lords who raised him, and friendship with the captain of the task force whom he dares to call "elder brother". Produced by Zhang Yimou, the drama features excellent actors.
This is a slice-of-life drama about an ordinary police station in the far suburbs of Beijing ; the policemen tackle all sorts of diverse cases such as settling a neighborhood dispute between former farmers, tackling a KTV front for a prostitution house, but also solving a cold-case murder mystery that reaches into the frozen northern provinces, and an internet finances scam that causes suicides and reaches all the way into far southern provinces. It is led by Zhang Ruoyun who played Guo Qilin's brother as Fan Xian in Joy of Life, and features many gifted actors and Bai Lu as actress in a police woman role. It is 38 episodes long on iQiyi.