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wangsizhong
01-06-2002, 04:18 PM
anyone else read this classic chinese novel?
its loaded with gong fu and every hero has his own weapon speciality. www.martialartsmart.com even carries "hero li kwei's double axes" (jan/feb 2002 issue of kungfu mag., p. 83)

the book has been translated into english by the beijing foreign language press
apparently it was mao zedong's favourite book
what are your thoughts on the book?
any favourite heros? i'm a big lin chong fan. i think he's one of the only characters that was consistently honourable his whole tragic life

Wang Si Zhong

GeneChing
01-08-2002, 10:51 AM
I often re-read it, but I admit I skip around a lot. Sometimes I only focus on the good parts. It's hard to keep track of all the names in the big Chinese epics. But I'd put that one right up there with Journey to the West and Three Kingdoms as important martial arts reads. Plus t's the sourcebook for so many HK KF movies - stuff like Dragon Inn makes so much more sense.
And Wu Song rocks! He's my favorite hero of Water Margin.

wangsizhong
01-08-2002, 11:24 AM
gene,

speaking of your other thread about the FSY and CTHD tv shows, did you catch the outlaws of the marsh show? i don't know if its on the air now, but i managed to get a 43 disc vcd set of the whole series. don't understand more than 2 words out of 50, but having read the book i could kind of follow the story. but, as is always the case, i got through the first 42 discs with no hassle, then the last disc was messed up and i missed the most important event in the whole story! at least i know what happened, but still.

question though, what level of acting are these shows at from a chinese viewer point of view? it's hard to tell if something is being acted at a high level when you can't understand the language....

Wang Si Zhong

GeneChing
01-09-2002, 10:46 AM
I think their level of acting is about the same as the acting on our sitcoms. Some good moments, lots of bad moments - mediocre. It's also hard to judge because they often retain the trappings of Chinese opera, which has some surreal stereotypes that often come off campy if you don't understand them.
I saw a little of the water margin series in my local video store a long time ago. Your collection sounds really cool. And your laser disc crash sounds so typical. I stillhaven't seen the end of shaolin soccer because it crashed my vcd player (but now I have the dvd - just got to get a player)
I also saw a little monkey king, which I really liked for its cheesy magic. White snake is another good one for cheesy magic - I saw that in China. I remember flipping on this scene where the abbot was chanting at this beautiful snake woman and swastikas were flying out of his mouth, subduing her. Waht a visual - it really stuck.
I would really love to see some of the Three Kingdoms series...

wangsizhong
01-09-2002, 12:28 PM
my school got all the english teachers tickets to the sichuan opera and i think we saw "white snake". a friend of mine was able to give me an idea of what was going on. never would have expected an opera to contain wushu and acrobatics, but it beats fat people in viking hats!

i considered getting the 3 kingdoms collection because it had english subs, but i figured since i haven't read the book yet and its wicked expensive, i'd put it off.

i saw a lot of the monkey king show because it plays like every day in china, but i thought it was mostly just silly. again, i'd have to read the book first.

i read the "dream of red mansion" (heng lou meng), so it would be cool to see a subbed version of that.

if you're really interested in the water margin series, we might be able to work out a sale--as long as it doesn't interfere with martialartsmart.com business ;)

Wang Si Zhong

GeneChing
01-10-2002, 10:44 AM
Actually martial arts are a very big part of traditional opera. There is even a character-archetype, the wusen, or warrior, that is a fixture in opera. And of course, there's the old 'red opera boats' legends of southern kungfu where skills were hidden in opera. But when you think about it, the opera skills are realy phenomenal, because not only do you have to bust the moves, you have to do it in these outrageously bulky costumes. Both Jackie and Sammo trace there roots to opera style.
Thanks for the offer on the series, but I doubt there would be too many sales - too expensive, too narrow. I suspect those who want it would find there own means to get it. I worked for a previous company that sold all the classics we mentioned - man, I pushed those titles because I really believe in them - but the didn't really sell at all. Only CMA that really wanted to understand the cultural context went for it, and most of them were good enought researcher to find it on their own.
As for white snake, you might check out Tsui Hark's Green Snake, starring Maggie Cheung and Joey Wang. Cheesy effects, but it's a beuatiful film and a guilty pleasure of mine.

wangsizhong
01-10-2002, 04:18 PM
hey gene,

"Thanks for the offer on the series, but I doubt there would be too many sales - too expensive, too narrow."

i don't know what you mean by too secular (not buddhist enough?), but i didn't think 20 bucks US plus shipping for a box 43 vcds at 45 minutes each would be all that expensive, but i digress :rolleyes:

i'll keep an eye out for green snake...

Wang Si Zhong

GeneChing
01-11-2002, 10:55 AM
OK, I take it back. Tha's not bad at all. Can you get me a copy?
But what I meant by narrow (poor choice of words) was that there isn't much of a market for it here in the USA. Those that want it can generally get it. Those that can't, don't want it - they don't even know what it is.
The vcd format is pretty troublesome. Most westerners aren't familiar with it. Most DVD can play VCDs now, but we did experiment in that market a got more returns and complaints. Perhaps we were too early.

reneritchie
01-14-2002, 11:32 AM
Hi Gene,

Wusheng (Mo Sang, Male Martial), Wudan (Mo Deng, "Female" (in "drag") Martial), Wujing (Mo Jing, Painted Face Martial), and some variations (Lao/Old, Siu/Young) were all pretty sweet with the martial arts (after the specialist roles were developed and spread). Wushen is probably the most famous due to General Guan (General Kwan), the Monkey King, etc.

Many of the master performers were Wusheng in the old days, I think, before the Xiaosheng (Siu Sang, Small Male) role, with its good looks and singing skills, began to gain in popularity and import.

The Red Junk Company (Hongchuan Xiban, Hung Suen Hei Ban), part of the Precious Jade Flower Union (Qianghua Huiguan, King Fa Wui Goon) was known to have some good MAists aboard in the Fukien White Crane, Hung boxing, Hakka, Wing Chun, Weng Chun, etc. traditions (before they were destroyed/scattered by the Qing in retaliation for their support of the Red Turban Uprising).

I think, even now, the modern (post Mao) Wushu draws on that tradition, if only in the thrill of the performance.

Rgds,

RR

ghostexorcist
11-26-2006, 04:54 AM
Supernatural speed?

I remember reading in the Water Margin (a.k.a. Outlaws of the Marsh) somewhere that a Taoist priest attached talismans to a fellow outlaw’s arms and legs, which allowed them to fun very fast (provided they refrained from eating meat and drinking alcohol). Was this Taoist Gongsun Sheng (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gongsun_Sheng), Pan Rui (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Rui) or somebody else? And who was the runner? It's been a while since I last read it.

I do believe the person affixed with the talismans was supposed to be delivering an urgent message. This is going to burn at me until I find out who the Taoist is! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!

This fictional technique sounds vaguely similar to that practiced by the Lung Gom-Pa (“Wind Meditation”) runners of Tibet.

omarthefish
11-26-2006, 09:33 AM
If no one else has ansswered by tommorow, I will look it up and give you a conclusive answer. My tentative answer just going by memory is that it was Wu Yong. It MIGHT have been Gong Sunsheng but my reccolection is that it was Wu Yong. The two of them were "brothers" (xong di) both practicing daoist magic and all that but I seem to remember that Wu Yong was the master strategist and the one who did the "speed" magic while Gong Sunsheng was more into summoning storms and stuff like that.

catch you later. It's too late over here to look this kind of thing up for you.

ghostexorcist
11-26-2006, 12:00 PM
If no one else has ansswered by tommorow, I will look it up and give you a conclusive answer. My tentative answer just going by memory is that it was Wu Yong. It MIGHT have been Gong Sunsheng but my reccolection is that it was Wu Yong. The two of them were "brothers" (xong di) both practicing daoist magic and all that but I seem to remember that Wu Yong was the master strategist and the one who did the "speed" magic while Gong Sunsheng was more into summoning storms and stuff like that.

catch you later. It's too late over here to look this kind of thing up for you.

Thanks a bunch! I found out the runner's name is Dai Zhong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Zhong). That might help you some. All I want to know now is if it was Wu Yong he got the talismans from.

SPJ
03-26-2009, 08:16 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QO2E36FrFA&feature=related

which one is your favorite?

if any?

mine is Lin Chong.

he was the dude that wielded the long spear very well.

:D;)

SPJ
03-26-2009, 08:20 PM
watch out for the volume turned louder in the middle.

this is a very good collection of all the 108 figures.

;)

SPJ
03-26-2009, 08:22 PM
see how may weapons you may identify?

:D

SPJ
03-26-2009, 08:26 PM
some were real figures

even though the tales or legends may not be true.

they were also associated with some of the styles of CMA.

the wine drinking and meat eating monk "lu zi shen"

he was with great strength

his style was Shuai Jiao etc.

---

many fighting styles and sets are associated with figures.

--

I also like Wu Song

--

:)

SPJ
03-26-2009, 08:28 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7GEAm8DCxY&NR=1

monk spade vs staff with spear methods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhRSvMtFvlw&feature=related

tv series clips.

:)

Shaolinlueb
03-26-2009, 10:55 PM
i like the guy who used to be a warrior, then he killed someone became a "monk" wielded the big monk spade/staff that was really heavy.

and the 2 axe guy.

cant remember their names.

Zenshiite
03-28-2009, 10:47 AM
I may be wrong, but the two axe guy you refer to could be the Black Whirlwind.

Dale Dugas
03-29-2009, 05:43 AM
The two axe guy is Li Kui.

He is my favorite.

I have a tattoo of him on my left thigh.

Love the double axes.

doug maverick
03-29-2009, 06:31 AM
i have a two way split between general two spears dong ping, and big halberd guan sheng.

golden arhat
03-29-2009, 11:16 AM
i'd love to get a hold of that artwork

ghostexorcist
03-31-2009, 07:46 AM
i like the guy who used to be a warrior, then he killed someone became a "monk" wielded the big monk spade/staff that was really heavy.
you are thinking of Lu Da (http://asia-search.com/images/forum/Water2/LuZhishen.jpg) (a.k.a. Lu Zhishen). He is my favorite.

A tale created by a famous storyteller from Yangzhou has Lu being the sworn brother of Zhou Tong, Yue Fei's military arts tutor.

Shaolinlueb
03-31-2009, 09:00 AM
you are thinking of Lu Da (http://asia-search.com/images/forum/Water2/LuZhishen.jpg) (a.k.a. Lu Zhishen). He is my favorite.

A tale created by a famous storyteller from Yangzhou has Lu being the sworn brother of Zhou Tong, Yue Fei's military arts tutor.

yes lu da! that guy is badass. his partner was pretty cool too.

GeneChing
03-31-2009, 09:23 AM
Check out our 2002 July/August issue (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=234). It didn't go over that well. Not enough of our readers were familiar with Outlaws of the Marsh, but I always argue that it's a must-read for anyone serious about martial history and legend. It's the the cipher to kung fu cinema.

We also carry Li Kwei's axes (http://www.martialartsmart.net/45-75cs.html). :cool:

SimonM
03-31-2009, 09:25 AM
My favorites are Lu Zhishen and Wu Song.

Zenshiite
03-31-2009, 06:55 PM
I just finished the first volume of a 4 volume translation. It's taking me sometime, but it's well worth it.

GeneChing
11-14-2013, 09:43 AM
THE ZIWUMEN TRILOGY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9yVqFQY7Nw)

Liangshan Ziwumen Kung Fu Series (http://www.martialartsmart.com/dvd-sy00.html)

There will be a major story on this in our upcoming JAN+FEB 2014 issue (http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?t=66955).

GeneChing
11-15-2013, 10:27 AM
Enter to win a ZIWUMEN TRILOGY (3 DVDS: Ziwumen Internal Power, Open the Mountain Fist & Choujiao (http://www.kungfumagazine.net/index.html))! Contest ends 6:00 p.m. PST on 11/28/13. Good luck everyone!

GeneChing
12-05-2013, 12:16 PM
Cover story: The Kung Fu Legacy of Outlaws of the Marsh By Gene Ching and Gigi Oh

Here are the table of contents (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=1134) for this issue.

Tainan Mantis
12-05-2013, 07:48 PM
The two axe guy is Li Kui.

He is my favorite.

I have a tattoo of him on my left thigh.

Love the double axes.

Prior to the popularity of Shui Hu Zhuan in the mid-Ming, Li Kui was often depicted as having a single long handled axe.
Gene makes a good point, Ming and Qing era martial arts draw heavily on Shui Hu Zhuan.
We have two excellent examples of plays from the Emperor's nephew Zhou Yuodun published in the early 1400's.


We will rely on
Our doubled fists of iron,
Our single lance
That can defeat spirits and pulverize ghosts,
And our one axe that
Calls up the moon and raises storms!
-Zhu Youdun (1433)

I wrote a short article on Li Kui as he relates to Praying Mantis Kungfu

The Immortal and the Black Whirlwind (http://www.plumflowermantisboxing.com/Articles/2012/immortal%20and%20blackwhirlwind.htm)

SPJ
12-08-2013, 07:31 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QO2E36FrFA&feature=related

which one is your favorite?

if any?

mine is Lin Chong.

he was the dude that wielded the long spear very well.

:D;)

The staff is the emperor of all weapons.

The spear is the king of all weapons.

As a long distance weapon, the spear is the standard issue of the infantry before guns arrived.

As such, if we are serious about our kung fu training, we have to pick up our staff or spear and drill it away.

Lin Chong was the head military instructor for emperor's palace garrison army or forbidden army.

Lin also defeated everyone on the Liang mountain with his spear.

I totally agreed with the author of water margin that the spear was depicted as the best weapon of all weapons.

What is your favorite kung fu weapon ?

That is the question.

:cool:

GeneChing
12-13-2013, 03:41 PM
See our Ziwumen Trilogy winners thread. (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67041-Ziwumen-Trilogy-winners)

GeneChing
01-27-2014, 10:12 AM
As much as I idolize Wu Song, this is too vulgar for a mall. Imagine trying to explain that to your kids.

Sculpture based on classic Chinese novel removed after being deemed 'too vulgar' (http://shanghaiist.com/2014/01/27/sculpture_based_on_classic_chinese.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2014/01/shenyang_sculpture1.jpg

A sculpture showing Wu Song, a fictional character in the classic Chinese novel The Water Margin, killing his sister-in-law Pan Jinlian has been removed from an shopping mall in Shenyang after people complained that it was 'too vulgar'.

http://shanghaiist.com/upload/2014/01/shenyang_sculpture2.jpg

The piece was created by renowned artist Li Zhanxiang, but the conflicted message of the work along with its direct depiction of sexuality raised a lot of questions from patrons of the upscale mall.

The piece is based on a plot line of The Water Margin. In the story, Pan Jinlian married Wu Song's brother, Wu Dalang, but later cheated on him with Xi Menqing. Wu Song then killed Pan Jinlian to get revenge.

One netizens said that "It's hard to look at it without any mosaic."

"This is too erotic," another said. "This is just too vulgar."

The influx of complaints resulted in staff taking the sculpture down.

By Isabel Quan

SPJ
01-27-2014, 01:03 PM
Wu Song Da Hu.

Wu Song fought with a tiger when he was drunk.

This is my favorite story.

Do not like the statue at all.

There are many better ways to depict love affairs and separation between a guy and a girl.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emy9R7zxAlg

the hip-hop way.

SPJ
01-27-2014, 01:05 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcUgA5-UN20

Latina way.

SPJ
01-27-2014, 01:06 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16lb2ce6ChQ

bawang
01-27-2014, 04:21 PM
youtube "water margin sex stories"

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/496/457/b89.gif

Pete
01-27-2014, 09:54 PM
Lin also defeated everyone on the Liang mountain with his spear.


liang mountain <> liangshan ?! i went there last year :eek: didn't know there was a book about it
80578058805980608061

that book actually sounds interesting to read! any recommended translations of it?

found this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Water-Margin-Outlaws-Tuttle-Classics/dp/0804840954/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390883538&sr=1-1&keywords=the+water+margin ?

(no i didn't youtube water margin sex stories but thanks for bringing up the thread :p)

SPJ
01-28-2014, 07:59 AM
Not only the mountain is with good terrain for defense.

Liang Shan Shui Po.

The water is with tall plants. It is also a good place to hide and attack Song's army.

Song's army was not good at fight on the water.

Many soldiers did not know how to swim or dive.

GeneChing
09-04-2018, 09:44 AM
I took this exact same photo - it's from one of the eaves in the covered walkways in the Summer Palace.



VANESSA HUA: ON THE BANNED CHINESE NOVEL MY FATHER LOVED IN HIS YOUTH (https://lithub.com/vanessa-hua-on-the-banned-chinese-novel-my-father-loved-in-his-youth/)
INSIDE THE ROLLICKING, POLITICAL WORLD OF THE WATER MARGIN
August 27, 2018 By Vanessa Hua

https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/1280px-Lu_Zhishen_Long_Corridor.jpg

The last time I sat down to dinner with my father, we ate Chinese take-out: fish simmered in rice wine, and mala beef, swimming in an oily, numbing and spicy sauce. He told me about his favorite book from childhood, The Water Margin: Outlaws of the Marsh.

“The stories turned us wild,” he said, his matter-of-fact tone belying this intriguing hint of his past. After the book was banned by his teachers, he and his friends had secretly passed around the offending tales, sharing a single ragged copy of a novel. Considered one of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature, I’d heard about The Water Margin before, but had never read it.

After our trip, I picked up a copy of The Water Margin, thick as a brick, and discovered a bandit world, gory and compelling. Sword-fighting! Bodies ground into meat buns! Oaths! The author of The Water Margin drew upon folk tales about a 12th-century band of brothers who stand up against a corrupt government. I discovered that The Water Margin was as timeless as political and social turmoil in the Middle Kingdom, providing insight into Chinese culture and history. But it’s also entertaining, rollicking and fast-paced, heavy on plot and light on interiority. There were no MFA moments, no meditations on sunshine or flashbacks to trauma from childhood. Instead, I galloped along with the fat, drunken monk Lu Da, who protects the honor of women; Grandma Wang who arranges an affair between a married beauty and a wealthy playboy; and the hero Wu Song, who wrestles a tiger terrorizing the local populace. Chairman Mao, who also loved The Water Margin, must have fancied himself a rebel sprung from its pages, and maybe, so too, my father.

While reading, I tried to imagine my father and his wide-eye friends, each taking a turn at the page, at a chapter, while the others impatiently waited. The stories seeping into their games and into their dreams.

Did these tales explain in part why my father sailed on a cargo ship, bound for America to attend graduate school and make his fortune? Why he taught himself how to cross-country ski, once gliding off the front step of the apartment building in Chicago after a heavy storm? Why he sailed on the San Francisco Bay on his boat that he dubbed the Six Happiness, in honor of the members of our family? Why he loved the open road, and all the possibilities it offered?

At 63, my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. In the decade that followed, his world closed in. His gait turned slow and uncertain and when his medication wore off every few hours, his speech slurred and his legs froze. Sometimes he ate meals in silence, weary and hunched over his bowl.

But on our last night together, he was expansive. I knew him as my earnest father, a structural engineer who designed our house in the suburbs east of San Francisco, patient and meticulous, whose confidence in me encouraged me to pursue the most impossible dreams—but I wanted to learn about his youth, when the world had beckoned with promise.

Did he first read the novel as a child during the war in China, when his family moved every few months ahead of the Japanese invader? Or as a teenager, after his family fled to Taiwan—forced into exile like the novel’s bandits—when the Communists came to power in 1949? The more I read, the more my questions multiplied. Who were your favorite characters? What kind of pranks did you pull, inspired by this band of rebels?


“After the book was banned by his teachers, he and his friends had secretly passed around the offending tales, sharing a single ragged copy of a novel.
I never had a chance to ask. A week after our dinner, my father fell and hit his head. Within hours, he slipped unconscious and died three days later. So many questions, I’d never be able to ask. So many stories, he could never tell me or my twin sons.

At the time of his death, I had only read a few chapters of The Water Margin, and then I put the novel away, haunted by the loss of my father. A year and a half passed, and as my debut novel, A River of Stars, started taking shape, I returned to The Water Margin for inspiration.

Like me, my father must have been captivated by the tales of heroism, gasping with laughter at the earthy humor. “What a nice piece of meat has fallen into a dog’s mouth”—to describe a village belle married to an ugly man—or the fate of a bullying butcher beaten to death. “The people tried to revive the body for half a day without success—for alas he was quite dead.”

In my grief, I found comfort in the pages, which felt akin to returning to the streets where my father had once been. I listened for the echoes of his footsteps and searched for what might have stirred his boyish imagination and shaped what followed in his life, and mine.

I’ll never know for certain what influence The Water Margin had on him. But in my fiction, The Water Margin led me to experiment with exaggeration, with the fantastic and with saucy humor. I’ve revived ancient archetypes and made the characters my own: feisty Scarlett Chen, barters and schemes to make a life herself, her baby, and her makeshift family in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Mama Fang, the wheeler dealer and entrepreneur, always knows how to take a cut of her own.

In the charming forward of The Water Margin, the author, Shi Nai’an, tells us that he wrote the novel for his own pleasure, while sitting outside near a bamboo fence or at dawn on his couch. “Alas! Life is so short I do not even know what the reader thinks about it, but I still shall be satisfied if a few of my friends will read it and be interested.”

Writers today still grapple with questions of audience and of posterity, though nowadays, we must also contend with likes and retweets and shares, online reviews, and other ways in which readers can tell us exactly what they think.

But it’s my father’s opinion—my father’s pride—I ache for most. We’ll never have a one-on-one book club, but I might with my twins. In my son born first, my father’s broad smile and Buddha’s ears have been reborn. The twin who arrived 26 minutes later, shares my father’s tinkering engineer’s mind.

My husband and I have read to them, ever since they were squirming infants, and in time, they began to flip the pages by themselves. Now they spend hours at the library, carrying over books that we take turns reading aloud. They love to read about colossal squid, about the planets, and anything to do with fighting, the adventures of Pokémon, the latter-day descendants of the bandit-heroes of yore.

The twins, who are entering the second grade this fall, aren’t ready yet for The Water Margin, but someday after Harry Potter, after The Hobbit, we’ll begin the novel that inspired their grandfather, peasant uprisings, student rebellions, and generations of readers to come.

GeneChing
06-26-2019, 09:08 AM
I'm copying your A comparison of Sun Wukong and Wu Song (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71365-A-comparison-of-Sun-Wukong-and-Wu-Song) post to our two relevant threads: Monkey King (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?50181-Monkey-King) & The Water Margin / Outlaws of the Marsh (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?53625-The-Water-Margin-Outlaws-of-the-Marsh).

GeneChing
12-08-2020, 08:01 PM
Not sure how this got by me for a month but it'll need its own indie thread at some point.



‘Kingdom’ Director Shinsuke Sato To Direct ‘Water Margin’ For Netflix; ‘Deepwater Horizon’ Scribe Matt Sand Penning Script (https://deadline.com/2020/11/kingdom-shinsuke-sato-water-margin-netflix-deepwater-horizon-matt-sand-1234613370/)
By Justin Kroll
Senior Film Reporter
@krolljvar

November 12, 2020 10:00am
https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/image002-19.jpg?crop=0px%2C25px%2C418px%2C234px&resize=681%2C383
WME
EXCLUSIVE: After directing one of Japan’s biggest box-office hits of 2019, Kingdom Shinsuke Sato has found his first major domestic film as Netflix has set him to direct the action-adventure saga Water Margin. Matt Sand, who penned the Mark Wahlberg thriller Deepwater Horizon, is writing the script.

Eric Newman and Bryan Unkeless for Screen Arcade are producing. Scott Morgan for Screen Arcade is exec producing.

The film is a futuristic take on one of the great classical novels of Chinese literature, The Water Margin is an epic action-adventure saga filled with glory, romance, and intrigue. The story explores timely questions about loyalty, leadership, and our duty to take on society’s problems no matter the personal cost.

Sato has been on the radar of studio execs for some time after his critically acclaimed work on Bleach and Kingdom. While this marks Sato’s first major film for Netflix, he already had a strong partnership with the studio after working on the series Alice in Borderland which premieres on December 10th.

The Water Margin is the latest project for Newman and Unkeless at Netflix. Together they produced Bright starring Will Smith.

Under Screen Arcade’s first look they produced the recent Jamie Foxx hit action movie Project Power, and will produce the upcoming Escape from Spiderhead starring Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollet; and Bright 2.

Newman has an overall deal at Netflix and is EP, and served as showrunner on the hit series’ Narcos and Narcos: Mexico.

Sato is repped by WME and Grandview and Sand is repped by Verve, Circle of Confusion and Gang, Tyre and Ramer. Newman is CAA.