I've decided to watch Ip Man movies (all 6 that I know of, not just the ones starring Donnie Yen)... and any time there is a Chinese martial artist biopic the movie is basically turned to a superhero movie.
Let's look at the non-Donnie Yen Ip Man movies:
*The Legend Is Born:
- According to some texts about Man's past, he didn't have an adopted older brother, and he did not fight him while stopping a gang of Japanese smuggled spies sent as children to invade China. The movie does this stuff.
- He did not get taught new techniques to Wing Chun because he was a pride of the place he was in, apparently his story was different.
*The Final Fight:
This movie made him fight a gang leader in an enclosed area inside a wall, and not only did none of the events described happen, the villain in that movie was fictional.
*Donnie Yen movies:
I am yet to watch the final film, but the rest made him a spiritual hero who fought against all kinds of oppression with his fists, like a twister (there's a pun in there, you'll get it if you watched movie 2 or read about it and remember the made up nonsense) removing trees from their roots. Or he fought gangs and hordes of enemies that are made up for these movies.
Why are they called biopics when the 'biography' part is disregarded?
American movies about Ip's most famous disciple share a similar guilt of course, but I'll spare making this a rant about turning biopics to superhero movies to move on to other stories that feel at least realistic.
In movies like Catch Me If You Can they make the character more of a troublemaker than the real character was, something Frank Abignail jr himself was shocked to know about the film adaption of his autobiography and how people reacted to it.
Why do directors and screenwriters do that? They don't need to add so much fictional content to make a movie engaging, show it as it is, don't put misinformation there just cause your movie is based on true events.
Movies inspired by true events can get a leeway because they create new characters with different stories and names, and some of them point someplace that the real characters lives are different from the onscreen people.