# Ip Man 1 - Donnie Yen - Question



## Xue Sheng (Feb 13, 2011)

I finally got to watch the entire movie (in Mandarin of course ) and I was wondering

How historically accurate is the movie?


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## oaktree (Feb 13, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> I finally got to watch the entire movie (in Mandarin of course ) and I was wondering
> 
> How historically accurate is the movie?


 
Well there really existed Ip Man :uhyeah:

Wikipedia said some things concerning how accurate it was cause you know the people who wrote it on Wiki were really there hahaha :boing2:

By the way the character  Miura is played by Hiroyuki Ikeuchi
 Who in the Drama GTO played Murai. So watching this movie I kept thinking oh man its murai haha.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 14, 2011)

oaktree said:


> Well there really existed Ip Man :uhyeah:
> 
> Wikipedia said some things concerning how accurate it was cause you know the people who wrote it on Wiki were really there hahaha :boing2:
> 
> ...


 
I shall have to look at the Wiki stuff. 

After watching the movie, which I did like actually, I began to wonder about the accuracy. I have not done any in depth study of Ip Man and pretty much all I know comes from his Son, Ip Chun's, books. But other than the Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the fact that Ip Man was in Fósh&#257;n I did not know any of with that movie showed. I knew nothing about him fighting the Japanese and I most certainly knew nothing about his being shot and I would think that would have been mentioned prior to this if it had actually happened. 

The movie left me with the impression that Ip Man was supposed to be the Huo Yuanjia of Wing Chun. I know he was highly skilled and a great martial artist but I was not so sure of the movie depiction

Thanks


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## clfsean (Feb 14, 2011)

I think the movie dramatized & added needed movie stuff to sell the movie.

But regardless, IMHO, it is a modern classic of KF movies. I put there with CTHD or Hero or the others that genre & ilk.


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 14, 2011)

I just found out that Xing Yu who played "Crazy" Lin the martial artist athat ran the teahouse that was beaten to death by the Japanese is 32nd generation from Shaolin

From Wiki



> Historical accuracy
> 
> Film's review detailed the departures from history: "The real Ip Man was never, despite the film's assertions to the contrary, forced from bourgeois idleness into work by the hardships of the Second Sino-Japanese War, nor was he ever employed as a coolie in a colliery &#8211; rather he chose of his own accord to work as a policeman (a profession lightly ridiculed within the film) before the Japanese invasion, and he continued in this line for several years after the war until Communist disapproval of his wealth and political affiliations drove him into voluntary exile in Hong Kong (an inconvenient truth that the film elides as tactfully as Ip Man mitigates the impact of his own victories). While, during the war, Ip Man did indeed refuse to teach his martial arts to the military police of the occupying Japanese &#8211; a decision which eventually forced him to flee Foshan &#8211; he certainly never had, let alone won, a duel with a Japanese general."
> Ip Man's eldest son, Ip Chun, stated that while the film was well-received, there could have been areas of improvement: "For example, the film was obviously set in Foshan, yet it was not shot on location on the actual place. Neither was the mansion like the original


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## Xue Sheng (Feb 14, 2011)

Interesting

Just look this up for teh heck of it

Ip Chun was born in 1924 and Ip Ching in 1936 

soooooo... if the Japanese bits of the movie are 1937..... Ip Ching should have been 13 and Ip Chun 1... But Ip Ching was not in the movie and Ip Chun appeared to be about 5... Still a good movie though


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## Nabakatsu (Feb 14, 2011)

yeah, it's not really all that accurate, still a good watch though.


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## AceHBK (Feb 15, 2011)

Ip Man 2 was better.

The movie to watch though is 
_*The Legend Is Born: Ip Man*_
Good movie that I highly recommend that you watch.  I have the blu ray and watch it from time to time.  I like the WC in this movie more than in the Donnie Yen movie.

http://www.yesasia.com/us/the-legen...ng-kong-version/1023036476-0-0-0-en/info.html


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## geezer (Feb 15, 2011)

Haven't seen that one yet. You say the WC is better? How about the plot and acting?


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## AceHBK (Feb 16, 2011)

I have a copy of it if you want to have it.

Donnie Yen's Ip Man 2 I think was better than Ip Man 1 due to better fight scenes. I just hated the amount of wire work in it. It also didn't go too much into the history of Ip Man and the differences in the WC system that he learned from Leung Bik and Chan Wah Shun.

This movie is dramatically different from Donnie Yen's because it focuses on Ip Man as he is in college and the 2 different schools of WC. It deals also with the adaptation of it. More focus is on technique is the result. They go into detail about the use of elbows, knees, high kicks.  You see how that caused problems with "authentic WC" that Chan Wah Shun taught.  The storyline is ok and how much of it is accurate is open for debate. I say it is a must see for sure. Also you can't beat seeing Yuen Biao & Sammo go at it. And last but not least you see Ip Chun teaching and doing WC as well. The directors commentary while boring at times does give good insight from Ip Chun as to how his dad was and he says which scenes are things that is dad actually did in training.


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## Aero (Feb 18, 2011)

All three were very good movies.

'The Legend Is Born: Ip Man' was stretched waaaaaaaay out of authenticity. Yiu Choi and Yuen Kay-San were his elder Sihings, not Sidais. As for Leung Bik training Yip Man, this has always been a speculation on part from the students that was training under Yip Man in Hong Kong to promote his school.

Though Yip Man did beat his Sihings in Foshan during his younger days, it was due to a couple of private lessons from Yuen Kay-San (not 'Leung Bik'), who trained in a different (some say, more undiluted) branch of Wing Chun. Though Yuen Kay-San and Yip Man were about 4-5 yrs apart in age, Yuen Kay-San's rank in Wing Chun was equal to that of Yip Man's master, Chan Wahsun.


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## Eric_H (Feb 18, 2011)

As was published in the World Journal Newspaper, Jul 11th-July17th 2010 edition there is an interview with Sifu Yip Ching, Grandmaster Yip Man's second son. In this interview Yip Chun confirms that his father, GM Yip Man, credited his advanced wing chun technique to a man named Leung Bik.


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## geezer (Feb 19, 2011)

Not much point in arguing over what, how much, or even whether or not GM Yip Man learned advanced concepts from Leung Bik. All the parties who would have been witnesses are long, long dead, and it really has no relevance to the art today... except as a way to promote particular lineages and possibly start a lot of unpleasant bickering. I prefer to take GM Yip at his word (as passed down in the written account given to his students) and not to worry too much about it. After all, WC/VT/WT continues to be relevant not because of its ancestry, but because of of it's efficacy.


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## AceHBK (Feb 20, 2011)

I would like to know of other people who were taught by Leung Bik (Leung Jan's son)


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## tenzen (Feb 20, 2011)

All 3 ip man movies can be viewed on youtube in their entirety. They are all great movies and very entertaining. The 3rd film a legend is born is more accurate in its portrayal of wc due to the main actor playing ip being a student of ip chun. Other than that none of these movies are a biographical account of what really took place. But none the less they are great movies and it should be left at that. I mean how many different movies have we seen with wong fei hung as the main character and nothing in the movie relates to the actual figure. Once again all 3 are on youtube in their entirety, for those who have not seen them.


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## tenzen (Feb 20, 2011)

I would like to add that I thought donnie yen made a better ip man than dennis to. I think that was his name. But dennis does look like a younger yen at times so its cool to see it that way. Makes it a little more believable even tho the story is off.


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## Nick Stanovic (Mar 1, 2011)

The Legend is Born confused me because I thought WC didn't have fancy high kicks and junk like that. I also laughed how Ip Chun said Dennis To was better because he started a fight in a WC stance and ended one in a WC stance... last time I checked you're not gonna be in any stance other than getting the heck out of the area after disabling your attacker.


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## Mark Jordan (Mar 1, 2011)

When I watch a movie I don't expect it to be accurate historically.  They will always put drama into it. This film is loosely based on the life of Yip Man and what I know is that the Ip Man was never shot and he didn't fight 10 Japanese karateka that easy. But whether this is accurate or not I enjoyed the fight scenes, the pole sequence is superb and it was well acted and the characters are well portrayed.


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## Chat Noir (Apr 15, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> I finally got to watch the entire movie (in Mandarin of course ) and I was wondering
> 
> How historically accurate is the movie?



If you saw the film in Mandarin, you didn't have the best version - it was originally in Cantonese.  The Mandarin version was horrible and not accurate with the subtitles. The Legend is Born wasn't close to the Wing Chun of Ip Man 1 and 2.  Ironically, the lead really is a Wing Chun practitioner.....go figure; Donnie Yen with his Wushu background did much better at showing the true fighting style - thanks to Yip Man's sons and Sammo Hung.  There were a few true moments in the Ip Man films but for the most part, it's about as historically accurate as The Dragon, the Bruce Lee Story. I always hated that film.....


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## Xue Sheng (Apr 16, 2011)

it is actually the same movie with 3 different sound tracks and I am not disputing the translation differences... but since I do not understand Cantonese for me to watch it in Cantonese would not make much sense


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## geezer (Apr 16, 2011)

Xue Sheng said:


> it is actually the same movie with 3 different sound tracks and I am not disputing the translation differences... but since I do not understand Cantonese for me to watch it in Cantonese would not make much sense


 
I don't quite get what you mean. I'd rather watch a movie in the original language with subtitles than a poorly dubbed version. If the Mandarin version is so poor, wouldn't it be preferable to watch it in the original Cantonese, subtitled in Chinese characters or even English, for that matter?


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## shesulsa (Apr 16, 2011)

tenzen said:


> All 3 ip man movies can be viewed on youtube in their entirety.



I couldn't find the whole Ip Man 2 movie ... do you have them bookmarked??  Could you link???


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## Xue Sheng (Apr 18, 2011)

geezer said:


> I don't quite get what you mean. I'd rather watch a movie in the original language with subtitles than a poorly dubbed version. If the Mandarin version is so poor, wouldn't it be preferable to watch it in the original Cantonese, subtitled in Chinese characters or even English, for that matter?


 
Before we get into the silliness of Mandarin vs Cantonese did anyone happen to notice the  after my post [see the following quote]



> (in Mandarin of course )


 
I was not bragging or making a statement as to one language being superior to the other I was being a bit silly which I thought would be understood by the  that I included. And to be entirely honest the thread was not about Cantonese or Mandarin versions being better it was about the historical accuracy of the film

Now

I don't know how to tell you this but I am not going to learn Cantonese just to watch a movie  


Speaking the original Cantonese or Speaking Mandarin, the English subtitles are the same. I have watched both and I do not think the Mandarin is all that bad. I do however think the Version dubbed into English is horrible.

I did attempt to learn Cantonese several years ago while at the same time learning Mandarin and when I was all done the only person that had a clue as to what I was saying was a friend of mine who was from Guangzhou who spoke Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

And frankly I am getting a strange feeling that this thread is about to go down an incredibly silly path

Anyway you look at it, all three language versions are the exact same movie


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## ilhe4e12345 (Apr 19, 2011)

i just watched these 2 movies...and thanks to them i am currently being taught the basics and principles/theories of WC....it looked amazing (i know its a movie but its still WC) and after going over the basic strikes, elbow placement, stance work and kicks this past weekend, WC is something i am going to follow for a very long time  

as for the historical accuracy, i have no idea..lol


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## Domino (May 4, 2011)

AceHBK said:


> Ip Man 2 was better.
> 
> The movie to watch though is
> _*The Legend Is Born: Ip Man*_
> ...


 
'The Legend is born' looks far less accurate imo.


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## tenzen (May 4, 2011)

Due to copywrite issues the movies have been taken down from youtube.

Do a search for.   Watch ip man online free and you will find many sites that have the movies.


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## Domino (May 5, 2011)

Ah sure, I have seen all 3 but I choose to buy and support.


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