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Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting
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alt title(s): Kung Fu Fighting Everybody was kung fu fighting
Those cats were fast as lightning
In fact, it was a little bit frightening
But they fought with expert timing
—"Kung Fu Fighting," Carl Douglas
Because it isn't just grandma who suddenly acquires the ability to be an expert martial artist... it's everyone!
Some shows like to portray a world where violence solves everything. Everyone can and will be a martial arts master. Or expert sharpshooter. Or a beast at good old fashioned American fisticuffs. Or a black belt in the Interior-design Curtain-fitting Style
It doesn't matter whether or not it was hinted that they know how to fight nor does it matter whether or not they even look like they can. They can, do, and will.
In comedy shows, this can be played for laughs, when characters spontaneously break out into epic fights over trivial things like who lost the remote, who should pay for dinner, or who threw a chair.
Highly common in Wuxia, where it's harder to name a character who doesn't know some martial art.
See also I Know Kung Fu, I Know Mortal Kombat, and Dragons Up The Yin Yang to set the mood. All Monks Know Kung Fu seems to be this trope limited to all kinds of monks. Can be a form of Everyone Is A Super, where "Super" is defined as "Martial Artist".
Trope title is from the 70s classic song by Carl Douglas (First four lines shown above) that describes the style of this trope perfectly.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- Ranma ½. Everyone knows some martial art variation, from Anything Goes Tea Ceremony to Martial Arts Figure Skating. You name it, it's a martial art. Even calligraphy.
- Also, every dueling anime show of "To Be A Master" and "Gotta Catch Em All" type. Every opponent the main character meet will inevitably have a theme to their item or pet, which they will invariably ALSO be a martial arts master in this style as well. As they scream out the names of the attacks their item or pet does, they will also (pointlessly) perform shadow fighting techniques to point out how kick ass they are. Perhaps to convince us (and themselves) that they're not just, you know, fighting with cards and plastic toys.
- Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple. Subverted in some characters, like Niijima or the girl who has a crush on Kenichi, but pretty much the whole cast has knowledge of martial arts, even the mouse.
Comics
- One of the initial criticisms of The Batman was that seemingly every villain was an expert hand-to-hand combatant, especially the Joker and the Penguin.
- Which makes sense if you notice the rarity of guns in that universe.
- Almost any significant character in the Marvel universe who has no Combat Superpowers and is not a Squishy Scientist is an expert martial artist.
- Subverted slightly in that Captain America is shown teaching a LOT of them various moves.
- Justified, you meant. A subvertion was the Human Torch, who, when depowered, was less combat proficient than his sister or Reed Richard. He took some fighting lesson after being toyed by Doctor Doom('s bot).
Films
- In the live action adaption of the comic Watchmen, most of the main characters become peak human martial art experts, as opposed to the original where all the kung fu action is restricted to a few basic kicks and punches.
- Played to hilarious, awesome excess in Kung Fu Hustle.
- A plot point in the movie Shaolin Soccer: the hero points out a few people that would have less trouble with their lives if they just knew shaolin kung fu. After winning a soccer tournament with shaolin kung fu, the final scene of the movie features the same people solving their problems with shaolin kung fu. In the English dub, the song that plays in the background is a cover of Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas.
- Of course, it's a staple of almost every modern day HK martial art movie made since the 70s. There's at least one movie out there were an interior decorator turns out to be a kung-fu expert.
- Played with in the 2008 Speed Racer film, as everyone in the Racer family is able to prodigiously defend themselves against enemy racers, ninjas, etc. Most of them somehow know Kung Fu, although Pops doles out a beatdown with Good Old Fisticuffs. The except is the Racers' mechanic Sparky, who is totally useless in a fight and repeatedly has to be bailed out by his infinitely more skilled companions.
- Blade. Also Blade, Blade, and oh yes, Blade.
- Enter The Dragon ends with a massive kung fu battle. On one side you have Han's army of martial arts students, trained to kill mercilessly with their bare hands. On the other side you have... a bunch of vagrants and runaways, kidnapped from the streets of Hong Kong and freshly released from Han's dungeons. The two sides appear to be about evenly matched.
Literature
- The Discworld, where fighting skills are affected by narrative causality. Namely, one can kick more ass if the story depends on it. Of course, years (or decades, in the case of the Silver Horde) of training always helps.
Live Action TV
- Becoming a vampire on Buffy The Vampire Slayer didn't just mean gaining immortality or super strength... it also meant automatic Kung Fu prowess. Why is being a vampire bad again? Oh yeah, that sun thing. And that soulless monster thing.
- Any Power Rangers hero or side character intended to become one later will have mad fight skillz even if there's no indication that they've ever taken a single karate lesson. If they don't have any the very first time the Mooks show up, they will by their second appearance.
- Also of note is that a ridiculous number of people in the original seasons were nuts about martial arts, long before Rita attacked. Once the franchise finally moved out of Angel Grove in season 7, this was realistically dropped.
- Averted with the original Blue Ranger. Billy didn't have any martial arts skills in his human form at the beginning of the series and even seemed to have trouble with Rita's Putties. Following an episode that had him actually taking lessons from one of the other Ranger's relatives, he started to get better over time.
- Hilariously subverted with Green Ranger Ziggy of Power Rangers RPM.
- Lovejoy, a British TV series (very!) loosely based on some novels about a conman-cum-antiques-dealer, subverted this one in a scene where Lovejoy's ally of the week, a Japanese man, frightens off a gang of thugs by pretending to know kung fu. After they're gone he explains that everyone just assumes he can kick their butts because he's Asian.
- That also sums up the plot of They Call Me Bruce? (1982).
- Xena Warrior Princess. Not only does everyone (outside of the mooks) know Kung-Fu, they know different styles: Karate, Capoeira, Judo, pressure point manipulation — if it's vaguely martial art-like, a Xena character has used it. Yes; in Ancient Greece.
- Fully justified. Ancient Greece was, by modern standards, a violent place where swords, spears and unarmed fighting were commonplace, accepted elements of everyday life- yes, even in "gentle", civilized Athens. (Socrates was an ex-soldier). Pankration was a clearly defined martial art complete with strikes, throws, and submission holds, and remains a viable art even in the modern age of Ultimate fighting.
- In fact, in ancient Greece, every male had to join the military, so it's entirely expected that they should know how to handle themselves in a fight.
- They should not, however, know Kung Fu.
- In a daydream sequence of JD in Scrubs, every surgeon was kung fu fighting for a briefcase. Seriously, the song "Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting" was played.
- One episode of Charmed had no supernatural enemies whatsoever. Instead the episode's villain was a corrupt District Attorney who was trying to frame his mistress for murder. Towards the end of the episode the mistress confronts the District Attorney and the two of them suddenly engage in a brief kung fu fight completely out of left field.
- On Lost, everyone except Hurley is an expert marksman and close-combat fighter. Hurley makes up for this lack by running people over with a bus.
Tabletop Games
- In the roleplaying game Feng Shui, one of the cardinal rules of combat is that everyone — EVERYONE — knows at least some kung fu. They might not have enough skill for it to register in their stats, but if a character is capable of more motion than your average baby, then they know kung fu.
- Except for those who have just the Guns skill combat-wise, like the Killer or the Techie. Those guys just dive around, take cover, and use the Guns And Gunplay Tropes to full effect. Or the Sorcerer, who uses the Sorcery skill to rain all over his enemies' parade.
- The RPG Weapons of the Gods, and (one assumes) the Chinese comic book on which it's based.
Web Original
- Justified in the Whateley Universe stories. At the Whateley Academy, students have to take introductory martial arts ("introductory" in the superpowered sense of the word) or Survival, and those who skip out usually regret it when they discover the Combat Finals at the end of term. So huge numbers of mutants at the school can pull off some aikido or Shaolin kung fu or whatnot. There are over half a dozen teachers whose job is teaching martial arts, in a school of under 600 mutants.
- There was an unusual prevalence of combat skilled characters in Survival of the Fittest V3 and its Pregame, especially since the characters are all, at best, highschoolers. Averted in V2 and V1, mostly, since few characters got opportunities to engage in hand to hand fighting.
- Seth vs. Walter in V2, though, was a notable exception to this aversion, with inordinate skill levels being displayed (although Seth was, admittedly, already established as fairly skilled), especially with Walter, who displayed abnormal levels of strength against both Seth and Mariavel Varella, along with skill in the earlier knife fight against Jin Li-Jen. The actual fight with Seth soon turned into a brutal slugfest on par with a bare-knuckle boxing match.
- The the That Guy With The Glasses First Anniversary Brawl, every single one of the site's contributors proved to be semi-competent, marginally deadly martial artists.
Web Comics
- Subverted in this
 Everyday Heroes episode, where Mr. Mighty and his wife engage in "Trial By Combat" (actually "Trial By Guitar Hero") to determine who has to clean the cat box.
Western Animation
- The Boondocks specifically states that anytime someone throws a chair, everyone will engage in a mass fight. Huey and Uncle Ruckus are apparently gifted martial artists that are good with melee weaponry; in Ruckus' case, this is extremely bizarre (given his terrible health and physical ability, blatantly referred to in previous episodes). Colonel Stinkmeaner started out as a subversion (Huey assumed his blindness made him Daredevil, but it turns out he's just a blind old man who got a lucky shot in), but (ridiculously) returned from Hell a martial arts master, the episode implying that he was trained by Satan himself.
- Not to mention that Granddad is a master of Belt-Fu...
- In the second season episode "Attack of the Killer Kung-Fu Wolf Bitch", Granddad's internet blind date, Luna, is revealed to know "White Lotus Kung-Fu" and to have won the Kumite (every time the tournament's name is mentioned, there's a little Chop Sockey "hi-yah" noise). Needless to say, eventually Huey tests her skills and is beaten to the floor for his troubles.
- One episode of Family Guy had the entire family break out into an epic brawl after criticizing each other's faults. Ironically (or maybe not), this brought the family closer together.
- Not to mention the multiple chicken fights.
- In The Penguins of Madagascar the penguins use violence to solve everything from runaways to making popcorn pop. Skipper, the leader, even says in one episode, "I find reason tedious and boring. We use force."
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