My wife and I went to watch this film at the 1 Borneo Mall on Christmas Day, mostly because her father is staying with us at Kota Kinabalu at the moment and he was bored. I’m not going to go into detail about the story, so if you haven’t heard about it yet, check out its page on Wikipedia.

What really struck me about the film was how safe the producers played. Just about every single event in the film is predictable in the worst possible way: courteous and cultured martial arts master who, of course, is also a Chinese patriot, kicking the asses of arrogant and barbaric Japanese invaders, heroic sacrifices, etc. etc. Haven’t we seen all this before? Apart from the boring similarities with Jet Li’s Fearless, released just two years ago, the film isn’t that accurate a portrayal of the master’s life, if his biography on Wikipedia is anything to go by.

This is totally spoilerific, so skip this section if you want to see what happens in the film for yourself, but here’s a point by point comparison of events between the film version and real life:

1. In the film, Yip Man is rich, but there’s no real indication where his wealth comes from and it’s clear that he doesn’t actually do any paid work. His biography indicates that he inherited wealth but at the same time worked as a police officer. It’s reasonable to assume that in real life his martial arts skills were an asset in carrying out these duties.
2. Yip Man makes a point of not teaching anyone his martial arts in the film, until after the Japanese invasion. On his biography page, it’s explained that although he never ran a martial arts school because that would conflict with his police work, he did teach martial arts informally to his subordinates, friends and relatives.
3. The duel with a Japanese general is a huge plot point in the film. There are no indications that this actually took place in real life, though it’s noted that he refused multiple invitations by the Japanese to have him teach their soldiers.
4. In the film, he flees for Hong Kong with his family after he was shot after the duel with the Japanese. In real life, he fled to Hong Kong not from the Japanese but from the Chinese Communists because of his connections to the Kuomintang, and he fled by himself.

I’m raising these points, not because I’m a stickler for historical accuracy but because what the film does is one of the worst ways of melding history with imagination. It takes questionable liberties with real life events to prop Yip Man up as a great Chinese patriot (if he was such a patriot why didn’t just join the army to resist the invasion?) but at the same time doesn’t bother to make up stuff in an inventive or unique enough way to differentiate it from every other martial arts master biopic ever made. My wife made a good point on how the Chinese view their heroes: heap up the praises for these culture heroes and no one cares how far fetched or historically inaccurate they are, criticize them one whit or even suggest that there might be some negativity or dubious conflict in their characters, and you’re up to your ears in complaints and nitpicks about historical revisionism.

Don’t even get me started on how the Japanese are portrayed in the film. Yes, the Japanese general does seem to have some respect for martial artists, but by the end of the film, it’s clear that he too thinks that Japanese supremacy trumps all. As for the Chinese, well, they’re uniformly patriots and good guys. Even the guy who was working as a translator redeems himself before the film ends. I’m sure that making a film this uni-dimensional makes it easy for people with fewer brain cells to understand what’s going on, and no, you certainly don’t want to risk confusing your audience over who to cheer for, but don’t expect to end up with a good film if you go this route.

What’s really sad is that Hong Kong cinema was once capable of far more than this. Jet’s Li’s Fist of Legend, released in 1994, was a better film in every way. Not only did it have better action (kung fu film-makers do your homework: you cannot make a great kung fu film if you refuse to have villains who are actually skilled enough to provide a fair challenge for your hero), it handled the Chinese-Japanese conflict in a much more intelligent, and hence more dramatically effective, way. There were good Japanese and bad Japanese, just as there were bad Chinese and good Chinese. The film was also gracious enough to have the fight between Jet Li’s character and the real Japanese master end in a draw.

As it stands, Ip Man is notable only because it highlights Wing Chun, resulting in fights that look more subdued and disciplined that the wilder and more frenzied action that we’ve mostly seen more recently and surprise, surprise, Donnie Yen actually manages to restrain his normally flamboyant self to turn in a decent performance (compare this to his ridiculous overacting in Dragon Tiger Gate). As far as I’m concerned, Kung Fu Panda is still the best kung fu movie this year.

One thing that has piqued my interest is that Wong Kar Wai seems to have been planning his own version of Yip Man for a while now. I have my doubts about seeing Tony Leung as the titular character, but any martial arts film by Wong Kar Wai would be worth waiting for, if the project ever gets off the ground.