Made in two seasons of 13 episodes each by Nippon Television it was shown in Japan in 1973 and 1974 as 水滸伝 (Hepburn: Suikoden).

This adaptation follows Lin Chung (Atsuo Nakamura) and his clashes with the local government official Kao Chiu (Kei Satō).

For an English-language version, it was adapted by David Weir without translations, using only brief plot synopses.

In the UK a DVD box set of both series was released by Fabulous Films in 2005.

In 2016 the series was reissued on DVD[7] and Blu-ray[8] with missing portions reinserted that were included in the original 1970s post-watershed broadcast.