Interesting topic. Before I give my opinion, I should probably mention I'm a first kyu shotokan karateka (basically...brown belt in the most popular form of karate). That obviously colors my opinion on the matter.
I was watching the trailer for the upcoming Yip Man movie. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I already know movies are fake. But I don't think the Kung Fu you learn today is the same as what was taught a hundred years ago.
Can't speak on kung fu specifically, but I would assume so. From what I understand outside my own field, practicing martial arts as a means of sports is still relatively young. As such, it had to be adapted from a way to defend yourself from often traditionally armed enemies to a sport that focuses more on the demonstration of skill and technique rather than effectiveness.
Nowadays to comply with safety laws and make the sport more accessible the difficulty has been dumbed down and there is less contact involved. Safety laws are important and should be treated as such. But I have to disagree with making it easier to make it more accessible. Skills take time, effort and dedication to learn; learning to handle physical pain is a part of martial arts training, you need to harden the fuck up.
Believe me: there's still plenty of that "time, effort and dedication" to go around. Karate, for example, used to be that a single kata (erm...the definition would roughly be "an imaginary fight consisting of around 20-60'ish combat moves") required a full year of dedicated study. Considering that a new kata is required for each belt, it would take ten years to go from kyu 10 to kyu 1 (white to brown).
That "learning to handle physical pain is a part of martial arts training"...I won't say that it's only your opinion because it's not, but there are different schools of thought on this one. AFAIK this is more dependent on the actual martial art than how it's taught. Boxing, for example, is also an art form when practiced at a modest level, yet is (indeed) very physical in nature. Tai chi is on the other end, focusing almost exclusively on the mental aspect. Karate - and I suspect kung fu as well - is somewhere in the middle.
Shotokan karate is roughly divided in three parts: kumite, kata and kihon (translated: "fighting", the earlier explained "fight-dance thingy" and style). So in general, we practice against opponents roughly one third of our training time. There are times it's more, there are times it's less. Last monday, for example, we trained almost exclusively on one kata (jion). Tonight we'll get a guest teacher who is a former champion, so it'll be more kumite-focused. But even so: karate isn't about being able to deck the other one the most (we've got one member of 80+ years) as it is about demonstrating your skill. And as a practicer: I'm glad for it. Even with the security measures in places and the senseis banging on about "keeping control" and "remain calm", accidents can always happen when you attempt to hit the 1 cm directly in front of your opponent's chin with a fist going at mach 3 speed.
EDIT: It's worth mentioning that I've been thinking of taking up a martial art lately. I don't want to learn Kung Fu for pussies, nor do I want some dramatic looking but ultimately ineffective shit from a movie.
I can only support this: try it out. I initially went along with my brother whom had heard about 'this karate club' that was apparently good (neither of us had any experience in any martial arts whatsoever), you could start at any point and the first three lessons were free. I think my brother still has one of those lessons. It's been...five and a half year since, and I simply never stopped.