How accurate is IP Man's story?

How accurate is IP Man's story? - Person Throwing Dart Pin

Recently I watched the Ip Man film series. The 4th one specially got me thinking.

How accurate could the story be?

I am thinking, since it's a Chinese movie, perhaps they have exaggerated a little bit heh? Are there any racist elements?

Did the events outrageously prompted by the US army actually happen? Is there any truth to it?



Best Answer

It's practically a complete work of fiction. While some details are derived from certain fact - IP Man did teach wing chun, but not in a school. He was a police officer for a while - precisely what and how of his day to day life would be something akin to a game where you tell a simple story and pass it to each new generation. By the time even a few generations pass, you have very little remnants of the truth left.

And in a tale like IP Man, as we have seen in these 4 installments, it sort of has to be. Truth be told, the life of a martial arts instructor is not very interesting. Back then, they were revered as master scholars, like how a PhD bearing professor might be today. I'm sure on the odd occasion you had challenges, but for the most part that didn't and does not happen today. Not because of laws or what, but because generally speaking people don't like being punched and kicked and even if you know what you're doing, walking into a martial arts studio like they do in these movies looking to fight the whole school would be an act of suicide.

I don't have references for you. But you can bet the IP Man series is about as factual as the Hatfields and McCoys is on Netflix. Yup, there was a feud. Probably everything else in between was made up to be entertaining.

Unnecessary extra info: My family is from Canton, China back when it was called Canton. We've all been through the phases where we thought Bruce Lee was cool, martial arts, history, this and that. I recall reading about Bruce's life as a kid and his success in Hollywood. He wasn't even particularly great. He was just famous. Also, he was fast and that certainly helped his accolades, but in the grand scheme of things Bruce Lee was more marketable than he was talented. IP Man was just a martial arts instructor in his pastime and his family origins were one of fair wealth compared to most people. But if you want to make a few solidly kick ass movies, you kind of have to make up a few things to make history sound a lot less boring.




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Is the Ip Man series accurate?

The 'Ip Man' Movies Are Based on a Real Person, but They're Not 100% Accurate. Martial arts fans have been salivating over the Ip Man films ever since the first entry into the popular series first debuted in 2008.

Are the Ip Man films true?

Ip Man (Chinese: \u53f6\u95ee / \u8449\u554f) is a 2008 Hong Kong biographical martial arts film based on the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun and teacher of Bruce Lee. The film focuses on events in Ip's life that supposedly took place in the city of Foshan during the Sino-Japanese War.

Is the story of Ip Man 4 true?

Ip Man 4: The Finale is a 2019 martial arts film directed by Wilson Yip and produced by Raymond Wong. It is the fourth and final film in the Ip Man film series, which is loosely based on the life of the Wing Chun grandmaster of the same name, and features Donnie Yen in the title role.

Is the grandmaster a true story?

The Grandmaster (\u4e00\u4ee3\u5b97\u5e08) is a 2013 martial arts drama film based on the life story of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man. The film was directed and written by Wong Kar-wai and stars Tony Leung as Ip Man.



Top 10 Things The Ip Man Movies Got Factually Right and Wrong




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