Kung Fu Clairvoyance

In many action movies, particularly those based on martial arts, the protagonist faces insurmountable odds and must fight several enemies at once. However, he has the upper hand: his combat ability is far superior to that of any of the Mooks he's fighting.

The audience watches in awe as the protagonist beats down countless enemies, but if one were to pay closer attention to what was happening onscreen, a few questions would arise: How did he know the guy behind him was throwing a punch? How did he know the guy in the rafters was about to open fire? How did he know a knife was flying towards the side of his head?

Kung Fu Clairvoyance. That's how he knew.

Usually to illustrate a character's adept combat skills, they will be uncannily responsive to the action around them. So responsive, in fact, that they don't even need to see it happen to react to it.

The audience isn't supposed to notice this, though; they're just supposed to see that the fighter is reflecting every attack coming at him and assume that it's because of how amazing he is. Indeed, most action sequences are too fast or frantic for people to notice that someone is reacting to something they couldn't reasonably have seen coming.

When done well, Kung Fu Clairvoyance is not noticeable. When done poorly, it can break the audience's Willing Suspension of Disbelief and/or paint the character as a God Mode Sue. Sometimes, Kung Fu Clairvoyance will be made obvious in order to point out how much of a Badass a character is (for example, the Offhand Backhand or Badass Back), and whether or not the audience is willing to accept this depends on how well it takes Refuge in Audacity or if it follows the Rule of Cool. When such lampshaded, you can also expect an emphasis on the fighter's ear (or nose for guys like Wolverine), to suggest he simply heard the baddie coming.

While occurring most often in martial arts movies, and especially in fight scenes that pit one person against several, Kung Fu Clairvoyance can be applied to any situation in which a character reacts to someone or something that he couldn't reasonably have seen coming.

Not to be confused with Combat Clairvoyance, which occurs when a character can literally see into the future. Compare Offhand Backhand which is a single punch at an unseen foe.

Examples of Kung Fu Clairvoyance include:

Anime & Manga

• In Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin sensed a bottle that had been thrown his way, but he deliberately didn't dodge it, to protect Kaoru from being hit. Sanosuke calls him on it.
• In Ranma ½, both Ranma and Akane have been shown to sense sneak attacks a split second before they happen, giving them enough warning to dodge or block the attacks.
  • Ranma, in fact, is so good that he dodges attacks in his sleep -- as Ryouga was quite annoyed to find out one time.
  • Ryoga has it too, and, on at least one occasion, he was aware of danger long before any of the other martial artists in the room (including Cologne) even noticed. Too bad his danger awareness is equally affected by his sense of direction...
• In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, multiple characters, including Kenichi himself and the first Big Bad Odin use a technique called Seikuken, which grants this to the user. The more advanced levels involve maintaining eye contact with the foe to better read and predict their rhythm.
  • Odin in particular gains this once The Glasses Come Off, as it's the sign he's memorized his opponent's rhythm to the extent he doesn't even need to look at his opponent.
  • More generally, this skill is referred to as "the inner eye" and is explained as a sixth fighting sense one gets after years and years of training. The masters were astonished that someone as young as Odin had acquired this ability.

Comics -- Books

• Batman always seems to know when someone is sneaking up on him, as do most martial artists in comics.
• Sin City has Miho who is apparently so good that she can fall asleep and know when a mook is just thinking about shooting her, as seen in Family Values.

Films -- Live-Action

• Done to almost Egregious levels in the second The Matrix film, where Neo does complete polevault-backflips to counter against a pouncing Smith, among other instances. Then again...
• The Gun Kata in Equilibrium is actually based on knowing where the enemies are and what they'll shoot at before they do.
• Justified in The Silent Flute: The Hero is a blind beggar. Bandit #1 creeps quietly, quietly behind Beggar, but because it's a kung fu movie, before Bandit hits Beggar, Bandit must yell out, so Beggar hits him. Then Bandit #2, Bandit #3 etc., etc., etc.

Live-Action TV

• Obligatory Buffy the Vampire Slayer example: the famous sequence in the S2 finale, where Buffy catches Angelus' blade with her bare hands and eyes closed. But then she is the Slayer.
• And in the same universe, Angel catches an arrow aimed for his back, which was fired on him by Faith (when she's hired to assassinate him).

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons and Dragons
  • As far back as First Edition, the original Oriental Adventures sourcebook featured the "All-around Sight" martial art maneuver, which negated any bonuses for attacks from behind.
  • In version 3.0 and 3.5, a few classes get an ability called Uncanny Dodge that give them this ability. They take no penalty to their ability to dodge or deflect an attack when caught by surprise, even if they are asleep at the time of attack.
  • The monk class also gets a dodge bonus to their armor class that applies even when they are unaware of the attack.
  • For a more proactive version, the Combat Reflexes feat lets characters make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed (before they're normally able to act in an encounter). Special attacks like a trip or disarm can ruin an opponent's attack before he even gets to swing, or a particularly strong hit may simply knock him out.
• Champions has Danger Sense, which can enable your character to not be surprised by an attack. Make the roll by enough, and you even know where the attack came from, so you can counter-attack.
• Similarly GURPS has a Danger Sense advantage. A number of cinematic skills also help recreate these feats like: Blind Fighting, Timed Defense, Precognitive Parry and Sensitivity

Video Games

• Particularly lucky snipers in Team Fortress 2 have an achievement called "Shoot the Breeze", where they kill a Spy that is invisible. Lucky Demomen and Soldiers can also earn achievements for killing invisible Spies.

Web Original

• Madness Combat: This seems to be Hank's ability.

Western Animation

• In Samurai Jack, Jack blindfolds himself to fight a trio of archers, because supposedly he is able to use this skill better by listening to the archers load and fire arrows at him than by watching them do it.

Real Life

• In many forms of combat training, there is a lot of emphasis on constantly and quickly shuffling through all of the information coming through the eyes and the ears. The results of this can resemble clairvoyance: you make a few sounds coming up behind someone. They hear you and extrapolate where you are and what you are doing. Then they move and you think Oh Crap.
  • Or more basically, it's called "situational awareness" and is hardly limited to combat training.
  • Other amusing ways to invoke this trope involve watching reflections in shiny objects or feeling the air displacement on your hair.
  • Many martial arts also emphasize the importance of keeping one's defense up at all times, so that even an unexpected attack can be deflected easily—which also seems like clairvoyance, but is really a combative version of Crazy Prepared. And Common Sense.
• Another Truth in Television is the human ability to subconsciously predict the trajectory of an object. That is how its possible for the batter to make contact in baseball. The same is true of quarterbacks and receivers in football. Although receivers moreso than quarterbacks. For that matter nearly every sport has an aspect of this Trope. In baseball in particular, the clairvoyance is based on subconscious processing of visual data. One main difference between major- and minor-league batters is their vision. The majors players have to have eyesight good enough to see the threads on the ball so they can know how it is going to be deflected by its spin.
• Not only sports, but regular pool players begin to develop this ability. The geometry of complex pool shots is staggering from an academic point of view.