Even at the time of its initial US release, THE WATER MARGIN (known to moviegoers then as SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON) was generally acknowledged one of the better imports because, unlike most "kung fu movies" of the day, it boasted an actual storyline. Although it wasn't always clear, even then, who was who or who was on whose side, the mere fact that there were exchanges of dialogue at all elevated SEVEN BLOWS OF THE DRAGON to unheard of heights among the cognoscenti. Until its recent release on DVD, I had no idea that it was based on a novel (much less a novel boasting a hundred or more chapters). That explains a lot. (Not that it makes it any clearer who's who or who's on whose side...) It was cool to see David Chiang again as "the master of the eighteen tumbles," and I'm still looking forward to the (hopefully eventual) release of Wang Yu's THE Chinese PROFESSIONALS (which I still remember as being a great deal of fun and preferable, back then, to most everything but Bruce Lee's movies).
Review of The Water Margin
