To answer that question from 12 years ago.
Anything that can be reproduced in the physical is real, in the physical.
Some things are partially real. Like someone's claims of something's origins may not be true, or reproduced as accurate. But the forms themselves can be reproduced.
If someone says a form is an ancient shaolin kung fu form, but the person actually made it up themselves, that cannot be reproduced if it is not, but the form can be.
The form will still do what someone does forms for.
I know people will say that would be fake and so it cannot do anything, but people tend to want to corner the market on authenticity.
A lot of times I see someone saying this other martial artist is fake, when what they are doing cannot be reproduced in its fullest extent in reality.
Like Japanese Samurai sword practitioners. Or ninjutsu practitioners.
They were part of societies that were destroyed by other western type societies and so anyone practicing them now, are doing dress up. The only part that is real, is the forms and techniques. So Shaolin-Do forms and techniques are just as real as another commonly accepted Kung Fu school.
Someone will say this ninja sword is fake, because the hamon was etched on and the one they have is real, and that kind should be used to train.
The sword doesn't know it is fake, and like a wooden bokken will give you the general shape and weight to train. And if you use any of them in public you could get arrested, except the bokken.
The forms do not know they are fake, because that is just in someone's head.
I found a few commonly accepted origin stories are themselves perhaps not true.
I go to the Chinese Shao-lin center, which apparently has silently severed most of its ties with Sin_the, and if Sin-the made up some of the forms, I found they still come from movements in Tai-chi and Shao-lin kung fu forms, and they can be reproduced and do the same as the forms that come from the historical Northern and southern kung fu. The center focuses on the southern style more.