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

Right
As many people know, Bruce Lee had the kind of screen and real-life presence that overshadowed all others. So it’s not surprising to note that Ip Man is arguably best remembered for bringing up the young Dragon. While the franchise does well to keep the spotlight on Ip, they do give fans some proper teases in the second and third “Ip Man” movies, with a child Bruce Lee propositioning Master Ip in the former and a grown-up Lee strutting his stuff in the latter. While their adventure together in “Ip Man 4: The Finale” has no basis in reality, we can’t deny that actor Danny Chan adds a dynamic layer to the series with his embodiment of Lee.

Right
Okay, if the movies got this one wrong, then we’d have a serious problem. A form of Kung fu, Wing Chun is a light, composed form of self-defense that sees practitioners use their opponents forcefulness against them. Towards the end of his life, Ip Man himself described it as, “maintain[ing] one’s flexibility and softness, all the while keeping in the strength to fight back, much like the flexible nature of bamboo.” To prepare for the role of Ip Man, mixed martial artist Donnie Yen practiced Wing Chun for nine months under the tutelage of his character’s real-life son, Ip Chun, who was in awe of Yen’s ability to pick it up so fast. Yeah, us too.

Wrong
As great as this fight is at the end of “Ip Man 2,” which showcases martial arts going up against boxing, it has more in common with “Rocky IV” than actual history. Sure, it’s an exhilarating climax to end the film on, but never did an English boxer by the name of Taylor “The Twister” Miller come to Hong Kong in an effort to accentuate Western fighting styles over Eastern ones. Not only did Ip Man never engage in such a fight, but he only retroactively came to such prominence in the worldwide martial arts zeitgeist upon the advent of Bruce Lee. So just chalk this one up as another fictional climax, like his supposed bout with Sum Nung in “Ip Man 3”.

Right
In the first “Ip Man” film, Ip Man refuses to teach Wing Chun publicly, only engaging in private sparring matches with friends. Upon his emigration from Foshan to Hong Kong, however, Ip is forced to open a Wing Chun school to support his family. While this mostly falls in line with reality, the circumstances surrounding it vary. For one, his family only briefly lived with him in Hong Kong - more on that later. The 1960s saw Ip dealing with financial instability, prompting him to form the Wing Chun Athletic Association in 1967. According to former student Duncan Leung, some of this money went towards his opium addiction - something the movies certainly did not acknowledge.

Wrong
To wrap up the series, “Ip Man 4: The Finale” sees the titular grandmaster accepting Bruce Lee’s invitation to visit San Francisco in an attempt to find better schooling for his son Ip Ching. There, because he’s Ip Man, he of course gets embroiled in the kung fu controversies happening overseas. Though the plot manages to incorporate multiple branches of Ip Man’s life, there’s no reason to believe that Ip Man ever left Hong Kong, let alone Asia, especially if he’d been recently diagnosed with throat cancer. And seeing as the movie takes place in 1964, Ip Ching would in reality have been twenty-eight at the time, a tad too old to attend high school anywhere.

Right
Though the “Ip Man” franchise typically shows the Grandmaster in dire straits, his depiction at the beginning of the first film as a wealthy homeowner was right on the money. Upon seeing the first film, Ip Man’s son, Ip Chun, did comment that the mansion shown was larger than the real one, but Man’s comfortability with not needing to teach Wing Chun in Foshan was indeed accurate. That isn’t to say that Ip didn’t hold down work there, however, as the real Ip Man spent much of his time serving as a police officer in Foshan.

Wrong
In 1937, the Second Sino-Japanese War saw Japan’s forces invading mainland China, and that’s about where the similarities end. Though depicted as being taken over almost immediately, Ip Man’s hometown of Foshan wasn’t occupied until late 1938. Ip Man soon left to stay with one of his former students, Kwok Fu. He wouldn’t return until the war ended in 1945, when Ip Man essentially resumed his status as a police officer. He began training his son Ip Ching in Wing Chun some years later.

Wrong
Ip Man fled Foshan. That much is true. But when, and from whom, are all wrong in the film. Seeing as he worked as a police officer for the nationalist party Kuomintang, the Communist Party winning the Chinese Civil War in 1949 was bad news for Ip. So he and his family left their life of luxury and started over in the nearby British-controlled Hong Kong. While absconding in the wake of defeating a Japanese general in hand-to-hand combat and getting shot for his troubles is cinematic, it isn’t the slightest bit true. It’s so untrue, in fact, that he only left Foshan for good roughly a dozen years after the film said he did.

Right
“Ip Man 3” is arguably the most poignant of the three movies, deriving much of its pathos from the relationship between Ip Man and cancer-stricken wife Cheung Wing-sing. While Ip Man putting his marriage over his martial arts reputation is touching, it’s not exactly how things actually played out, as the two hadn’t seen each other for a total of nine years upon her death in 1960. Shortly after arriving in Hong Kong, Cheung Wing-sing returned to Foshan to retrieve identity cards, only to be blockaded by the subsequently established borders between China and Hong Kong in 1951, keeping her there. Not to burst your bubble further, but Ip Man even had a mistress from 1955 to 1968, with whom he had an illegitimate son.

Wrong
In what is undeniably one of the most rousing and cinematic scenes in the “Ip Man” franchise, Ip Man takes down the Japanese karate master General Miura in front of a zealous crowd of supporters in Foshan. It’s a spectacular finale, but it didn’t exactly go down that way in reality, if at all. While some reports corroborate the notion that Ip Man rejected the Japanese’s offer for him to train their soldiers, he definitely didn’t seek a match itself. If anything, it’s more likely he was challenged by the Japanese, and any subsequent bout that did transpire most certainly did not involve a general or take place in a public square. So take this climax with a big grain of salt.