abstract
| - 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. It is not uncommon for the Trope Namer song to begin playing. Highly common in Wuxia, where it's harder to name a character who doesn't know some martial art. May overlap with of course, World of Badass. See also All Asians Know Martial Arts, All Chinese People Know Kung Fu, Suddenly Always Knew That, 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". Contrast Wimp Fight, when it's painfully obvious that the characters don't know how to fight, and Fight Scene Failure, which is when the Actors are the ones that don't know how to fight. Trope title is from the 70s classic song by Carl Douglas (First four lines shown above) that describes the style of this trope perfectly. Examples of Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting include:
|