This kind of dueling takes un-bee-lievable skill.
Super Fly Reflexes is when a character uses a hard-to-catch insect like a fly or gnat to show off their astounding reflexes. Usually by snatching it out of the air, though other common variations including hitting it with the point of a sharp object like a dagger or pin, or even slicing it in half in mid-air with a sword. Or Improbable Chopsticks Skill.
This can be done to show the character's amazing training and skill, or simply to show off the superpower.
One reason why this trope is so impressive is because real flies perceive the flow of time more slowly than humans do, so they can dodge attempts to swat them easily.
The next step up is Bullet Catch, which demands actual superpowers to pull off.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball Super: Whis at one point demonstrates his precision and speed by calmly grabbing a bee by its wings mid-flight, without causing any harm to the bee itself.
- In the anime series, an assassin who's planning to challenge Golgo 13 impales a moth with a thrown dinner knife. Subverted in that he drew attention to his skill in a crowded dining room, right after lampshading how Duke Togo never drew attention to himself.
- One skit from Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto has Sakamoto swordfighting with a hornet using a compass, as seen in the page image.
- A variation is used in One Piece to demonstrate that Trebol isn't just strong, but lethally accurate: a single blob of his mucus thrown at a fly not only embeds it in solid concrete, but according to Robin was accurate enough to hit the fly between the eyes.
- Parodied in One-Punch Man, in a scene where Saitama finds it inexplicably difficult to swat a mosquito despite being so fast that the movement of his arms creates Kung Fu Sonic Booms.
Comic Books
- In the issue of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Marvel) where the first Star-Viper is introduced, he demonstrates his boosted reflexes by quickly grabbing three flies out of the air with one hand. A possible ShoutOut to The Magnificent Seven (see below)
- Daredevil villain Bullseye once demonstrated his extreme accuracy by shooting a fly out of the air with a rubber band.
- In the MAD spoof of The Karate Kid (1984), Daniel uses three chopsticks to hold and fire a can of fly spray.
Films — Animated
- In Animalympics, during the acrobatics event Bruce Kwakamoto manages to swat a fly bare-handed without missing a beat.
- In Home on the Range, Rico catches a fly with his hand and shushes it. The fly apologizes.
- In Batman: Gotham Knight, Deadshot skewers a wasp with a thrown cocktail pick as part of his Establishing Character Moment.
Films — Live-Action
- In The Amazing Spider-Man, a newly spider-bitten Peter Parker naturally catches a fly between two fingers, about an inch away from Aunt May's face.
- The chopstick example from The Karate Kid is parodied in Balls of Fury, where the protagonist's Old Master opens his cricket box, and the guy grabs the cricket. The master rebukes him and tells him that wasn't the intention. Unfortunately, the master's lucky cricket is now crushed.
- In Blind Fury, Blind Weaponmaster Nick Parker (Rutger Hauer) cuts a wasp in twain with his sword by sound alone. Can be seen at the start of the theatrical trailer.
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy impales a fly by casually spitting out a thumb tack while being lectured by her school principal.
- In Daredevil, at the end after being defeated and hospitalized by Daredevil, Bullseye kills a fly with a thrown syringe to show he still has his deadly aiming skills.
- Used in From Beijing With Love to establish Ling-Ling-Chat's Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass credentials. While he claims to be a master with blades, he supposedly misses the plush doll he was aiming at in his initial display. Later, when Ling-Ling-Chat is taken hostage, his partner Kam realizes he hit a fly in the corner of the room, proving to her that he's very dangerous and that the bank robbers are about to be very dead.
- In Get Smart, Agent 23 makes his Big Entrance by smashing a fly and flicking it into the trash. It turns out to have been a Literal Surveillance Bug, much to the annoyance of its makers.
- In the film of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ron comments that Cormac McLaggen has a build more suited to a Beater than a Keeper, saying that Keepers must be quick and speedy and have good reflexes. Cormac catches a fly between two fingers and says he thinks he'll be fine.
- Played for Laughs in The Karate Kid. Daniel stumbles on Mr. Miyagi attempting to catch flies with a pair of chopsticks ("Man who catch fly with chopstick — accomplish ANYTHING.") While Mr. Miyagi tries and fails throughout the scene, Daniel manages it within seconds of attempting it, prompting a disgruntled "You beginner luck," from Miyagi.
- In a scene in The Magnificent Seven, Lee's sitting at a table wrestling with his personal demons. Three flies appear by his cup, his hand flashes out and...
Lee: [sighs] One... Time was when I would have got all three.
- Our Man Flint has a Running Gag of superspy Flint demonstrating his awesomeness. When his boss offers Flint a silenced pistol for his mission, Flint rejects it and demonstrates his ability to kill a fly using a blowgun that fires a curare-tipped dart.
- Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach: Tackleberry shows off his impressing shooting reflexs by taking out an insect that just landed on a target at a firing range.
- In Raising Arizona, "Biker of the Apocalypse" Leonard Smalls offers to use his tracking skills to locate the kidnapped baby Nathan Jr. In a display of his supernatural prowess, he complains to Nathan Sr about the flies in the latter's office, which Nathan denies. Then Smalls lunges forward and grabs one in front of Nathan.
- Star Wars: In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn shows off his Jedi reflexes by catching Jar-Jar Binks' tongue with his fingers, as Jar-Jar tries to steal the Skywalkers' last apple frog-style.
- Terminator: Dark Fate: When someone expresses skepticism that she is a Super-Soldier from the future, Grace proceeds to cut a fly lengthways in mid-air with her knife.
- Also parodied in They Call Me Bruce when Bruce slices at a fly with a samurai sword, only to miss (because he's not the martial arts expert he's pretending to be). Bruce then claims that the fly "will make love no longer".
- In The Whole Nine Yards, Jimmy "the Tulip" Tudeski does this as a first sign of his former job as a contract killer. He even puts the fly in his mouth, too.
Jokes
- Three samurai are arguing over which has the best sword technique.
The first samurai swings his sword at a fly in the air, and the other two see the fly has been cut in half.
The second samurai swings his sword at a fly in the air, and then points to the ground, where the other two see the fly crawling around as its severed wings gently float to the ground.
The third samurai swings his sword at a fly in the air... and the fly's buzzing is suddenly a lot higher-pitched.
Live-Action TV
- On Everybody Loves Raymond, Raymond witnesses one of Robert's brief love interests catch a fly in midair between her two hands, and shortly after eat it. He humorously plays The Cassandra in trying to warn Robert about this freaky quirk. While not a woman of super powers per se, we later find out that she rather strangely associates herself with frogs and thus shares their fly-consuming behavior.
- Happy Days: Fonzie's cousin does this, establishing his superior reflexes even as he is despondent that there is nothing special about him. He goes on to set a world record for catching quarters flipped off his own elbow.
- RJ catches a fly barehanded in one episode of Power Rangers Jungle Fury after having spent the episode making friends with Flit, who is a talking fly monster.
Literature
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: When Harry sees Snape's memory of his father James when he was at school, he sees James playing with a Golden Snitch, letting it fly a short distance, then snatching it out of the air, to show off his excellent reflexes. Lily is not impressed, and accuses him of "showing off with that stupid Snitch".
- A variant appears in the Mobile Suit Gundam novelization. One of the tests the Flanagan Institute puts Lalah through is using her Psychic Powers to telepathically control a set of robotic arms and catch flies with them. She has no problem catching the flies, but doing it with enough finesse to avoid crushing them takes longer.
- Donald Keith's Mutiny In The Time Machine (1962). The villain Peters (AKA The Widgett) has an ability called "nerve speed" that allows him to move faster than normal human beings. He demonstrates it by grabbing a fly out of the air.
- Spenser has two examples. In one book, a fly in Spenser's office goes past Hawk, and he catches it and kills it with his hand. In another, Spenser is musing about how fast Vinnie Morris is, thinking that while he and Hawk can catch flies with their hands, Vinnie can catch them with his thumb and forefinger.
Theatre
- Depending on the production, this is often done by The Renfield in Dracula films and plays. He catches flies and eats them, or else he feeds them to spiders — then eats the spiders.
Video Games
- The Karate Kid Part II on Amiga and Atari ST has a Mini-Game where the player controls Mr. Miyagi as he attempts to do this.
- The Karate Kid for NES has a Mini-Game where the player controls Daniel as he attempts this.
Webcomics
- In MeatShield, Sora offhandedly catches a fly while discussing a typical mage failing.
Sora: Mages will spend hours researching a spell to kill a fly when it is so much easier— [catches fly between two fingers] —to swat it.
Western Animation
- Æon Flux has the main character do this with her eyelashes in the opening credits. The movie steals this straight out of the original cartoon. The idea was to show off how much control the heroine has over her body.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Yuyan Archers are boasted to have such Improbable Aiming Skills that they can pin a fly to a tree from a hundred yards without killing it.
- Back at the Barnyard: Played for Laughs. In "The Sun Cow", one of Otis' trials according to the internet is to be able to catch a fly with chopsticks. With hooves, he can't even hold chopsticks, so Pig's friend Marty the Fly volunteers to just land on his chopsticks. Then played straight when Freddy kills it with a newspaper in one strike. Which leads to Marty's funeral, where he does the same thing to Marty's brother.
- In Hey Arnold!, Arnold's grandma starts teaching him martial arts and demonstrates her ability to catch a fly unharmed with her hand. When he tries it himself, he accidentally crushes the fly.
- Jackie Chan Adventures:
- In "The Rock", Valmont catches a fly with his left hand and uses on it the magical venom injected into Jackie to prove him its eventual effects.
- In "Black and White and Chi All Over", after the Ice Crew has effortlessly beaten up the competition for Drago's new henchmen, their leader Strikemaster Ice casually flicks the wasp that scared one of the previous interviewees.
- In the Animated Adaptation of Trolls de Troy, as in the inspiring comics, flies are a troll's precious companions and source of pride. Getting their first flies is treated as a Coming of Age moment. Waha, being an adopted human, is fly-less and envious of the other trolls for theirs. So, it's rather common for her (sometimes with the help of her friend Pröfy) to try and catch the flies of another troll. When she's successful, a furious chase usually ensues.
Real Life
- President Barack Obama once famously killed a fly during an interview.
