For all those who have been misled by marketing and been disrespectful to Sijo Yuen Kay San and Sifu Sum Num.
Yip Man’s son, Yip Chun, and movie producer, Si Kwok Lam, apologized to Yuen Kay San’s grandson for disrespect:
YOUTUBE
And the Yuen and Yiu families voicing their displeasure about the movie (with actual interviews):
Profound respect from Si Kwok Lam, director of the movie “Ip Man” and Yip Chun, Yip Man’s son, is offered over insulting Yuen Kay San and lying about Yip Man being senior in Wing Chun to Yuen Kay San. Yuen Kay San was the top Wing Chun sifu alive throughout his lifetime. When he passed away this mantle fell on his sole disciple, Sifu Sum Num.
It’s unfortunate that this apology couldn’t happen before Sum Num, who had been grossly misrepresented in Leung Ting’s Book “Roots and Branches of Wing Chun” similarly, passed away. If a reader reverses the names “Yip Man” and “Yuen Kay San” in Leung Ting’s stories they will be much closer to the truth!
Movie producer Si Kwok Lam and Yip Chun, who co-produced the movie “Ip Man”, which glorified Yip Man with an incredibly fictitious heroic life, apologized six times and “served tea” to Yuen Kay San’s grandson, Yuen Jo Tong, (left in the Youtube picture, wearing glasses) for misrepresenting, and being disrespectful to, the legendary death duel champion during the 1920-1950s, Yuen Kay San. During a news conference in China, Si Kwok Lam and Yip Chun admitted in front of witnesses and acknowledged documents that showed that Yuen Kay San, not Yip Man, had represented the Wing Chun family and answered all the public death duel challenges in Futsan in those years, and admitted that he is senior to Yip Man in the Wing Chun family tree.
Mr. Si Kwok Lam (a student of Yip Chun and the movie producer of the Ip Man 3 movie) apologized and served tea to Yuen Jo Tong for misrepresenting his grandfather, Yuen Kay San’s reputation and status in Wing Chun history. (In the movie, Yuen Kay San was portrayed as Yip Man’s younger gung fu brother, not as skillfull as Yip Man)[9]. As is well known to any Wing Chun practitioner on the Mainland, this is ludicrous and laughable!
Yiu Wing Ken (Yiu Choi’s grandson) explains that, in the old days in Futsan, Yuen Kay San, his grandfather Yiu Choi, and Yip Man were called the “Three Heroes of Wing Chun” and were often mentioned together. Yuen Kay San student, Leung Jan Sing, also provided an ancestral document indicating that Yuen Kay San studied with Fung Siu Ching, who learnt Wimng Chun on the Red Boats, while Yip Man and others studied under Yuen Kay San himself. This record was actually made public in the 1970’s but had not been publicly disseminated in the West. Yip Man was not Yuen’s official student, having only learnt a little from him. Yuen Kay San taught Yip Man all the chi sau Yip knew – but this was not all that Yuen Kay San knew. In the order of seniority on the family tree, Yuen Kay San ranked at the first level, that is, he was unarguably the top Wing Chun man during his lifetime, with Yip Man being listed the last. It would be normal, therefore, as he did, for Yip Man to ask Yuen Kay San for instruction.
Yip Chun also misrepresented the facts of Leung Jan’s biography and reports on his life from several independent sources in claiming to have known Leung Bik whom he portrayed in the movie. He did not know Leung Bik. No Leung Bik ever taught Yip Man. Yip Man was taught by Ng Chung So. Leung Bik was a romantic fiction derived to promote Hong Kong Wing Chun in the early days. Yip obtained superior skills to his class-mates in Futsan by learning from Yuen Kay San. In fact, Yip’s father at one stage, asked his friend,Yuen Kay San’s father to teach Yip Man some Wing Chun. Yip Man had been disrespectful to Yuen Kay San several times, so he was reluctant – but agreed to his father’s request begrudgingly. Below is the original Chinese quoted from the original article in the Dayoo Newspaper of Guangzhou:
还原历史： “咏春三雄”齐名 姚永强介绍，当年在佛山，他的爷爷姚才与叶问、阮奇山并称“咏春三雄”，三人齐名，武功不相上下。阮奇山 的徒孙梁湛声还提供了祖传的记录，记录上写明， 阮奇山师从冯少青，而叶问与其他多个咏春武者一同在阮奇山的门下。“这本记录是上世纪70年代 留下的， 这也不能说叶问是他的徒弟，但论资历，阮奇山排第 一，叶问最后，叶问向他请教很正常。