IP MAN

5Karate chop: Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen in his most commercially successful role to date.

It's often said that fact is stranger than fiction, but for the case of venerable martial artist Yip Man (1893-1972) it's his glorious and galvanizing 'semi-biographical' (read: fictional) story that lifts the Wing Chun master from Foshan, Guangdong, above the otherwise perceived ordinariness of an opium addict practicing on a wooden dummy.

Don't get me wrong, for I'm full of respect for Bruce Lee's sifu - but mainly because the recent films depict him as an indefatigable folk hero in the ranks of Wong Fei-hung and Huo Yuanjia. This only goes to prove (further) that movie-making has its way of taking liberties with a subject matter and, if done correctly, turning gallium into gold.