Cane Fu



The use of a cane as an Improvised Weapon. Often associated with When Elders Attack, next to Handbag of Hurt. Given the bent shape, it can also double as a hook. A Justified Trope in that the Korean martial art Hapkido, the European Savate and Bartitsu and the France Canne utilize the walking cane as a potentially deadly weapon. Of course, consider for a moment that a cane, to be useful in its designed purpose, has to be strong enough to support a person's weight, and long enough to allow themselves to hold themselves upright with it. That combination makes for a potentially very effective melee weapon.

See also Sword Cane, when the cane is concealing a bladed weapon. May overlap with Parasol of Pain.

Anime & Manga
"Haru: I never knew they were so useful!"
 * Tuxedo Mask of Sailor Moon has a cane he wields like a sword. It can also act as a telescoping weapon, magically extending out to smack his enemies.
 * The weapon of choice for Bem in Humanoid Monster Bem.
 * Baron uses his cane as one in The Cat Returns.


 * The Rozen Maiden Shinku sometimes uses her cane as a parrying weapon.
 * Ranma One Half: Cologne.

Comic Books

 * Daredevil sometimes does this with his cane when trouble arises in his civilian identity as Matt Murdoch. Before he got his fancy combat staff, he fought with a cane as the Daredevil as well. And of course his billy clubs are his cane in his civilian life.
 * Fiddler's Green from The Sandman.
 * Silhouette, of the New Warriors, is partially crippled, and incorporates her crutches into her fighting style.
 * Splinter, Old Master of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage.
 * Batman: Bruce Wayne during the Knightquest arc, after having his spine broken by Bane.

Films -- Animation

 * Rafiki in The Lion King; he uses his staff quite well in the scene where he's taking on a group of hyenas.
 * Carl Fredricksen does this in Up.

Films -- Live-Action

 * In the cinematic adaption of The Da Vinci Code, Leigh Teabing, a crippled, old, slightly eccentric historian (and played by Sir Ian McKellen), manages to subdue Silas, an ominously frightening albino Psycho for Hire Church Militant with a gun (and a rather large body count)... by tricking him to reach over a table for the MacGuffin, so Teabing could beat the living shit out of him from above with his two crutches.
 * An aged character (played by Jean-Claude Van Damme) uses Cane Fu against a gang robbing a bar in the intro of The Quest.
 * Most of the murders in The House on Sorority Row are committed with a cane.
 * A Mythology Gag in the loose remake, Sorority Row, has the Final Girl grab a cane identical to the one used in the original for self-defense.
 * An old woman tries fending off the killer with her two canes in Scream Bloody Murder.
 * A set of canes is used in the style of Chinese hook swords by Jackie Chan in Shanghai Noon.
 * In Sherlock Holmes a Game of Shadows, Holmes uses his umbrella to hold off a knife-wielding Cossack.
 * An aged Diego de la Vega disarms a drunken Alejandro this way in The Mask of Zorro.

Literature

 * In Dashiell Hammett's short story "Nightmare Town", the protagonist always carries a straight cane, weighted at both ends, and uses it to defend himself multiple times, with great effect.

Live-Action TV

 * The First Doctor used his cane as a weapon in the early Doctor Who serials. At one point, he and a robotic duplicate even engaged in a canefight.
 * Played with in an episode of Victorious where the students at Hollywood Arts have to do stage-fighting. Tori and Jade's skit is about a mugger and an old lady with a cane.
 * Inferred in one CSI episode-Doc Robbins takes down a guy trying to steal a body from the morgue, and it's very likely his crutch played a big part in it.
 * Mr. Gold of Once Upon a Time walks with a cane (as well as a limp, naturally), and in "Skin Deep" uses it to deliver a particularly vicious beating upon the man who stole his teacup. Seriously, bones are broken.
 * Dr. House doesn't quite fight with his trusty walking cane, but it is not rare for him to use it to block, push away or trip someone as part of his usual antisocial antics. And then there's episode "Bombshells" and the Dream Sequence of House fighting his teammembers-turned-zombies with his cane, including turning it into an axe and then into a shotgun.

Tabletop Games

 * La Canne de Combat from GURPS: Martial Arts is a Parisian combat form that uses a gentleman's cane as its primary weapon. This is a real French martial art, usually taught as a part of Savate training.

Video Games

 * The Big Bad Ripburger in Full Throttle uses his cane as a weapon at least twice: and in the final fight against Ben, though Ben manages to disarm his pretty fast.
 * This is one of the Joke Weapons in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
 * Dan in Medi Evil 2 gets a Cane Stick as a reward for bringing the first Chalice to the professor. It has a weak stabbing attack, but when fully charged it can be slammed into the ground, generating a shockwave.
 * Frank Stiles, of Freedom Force fame, got his walking stick turned into the Patriot Staff in the events that turned him into Minuteman. Now he uses it to bludgeon people while shouting "Right Makes Might!"
 * Scrooge McDuck used his cane as a primary weapon, tool, and pogo stick in the NES Duck Tales games.
 * Samurai Warriors 3: Hojo Ujiyasu uses his cane as a primary tool, both as a bludgeoning object and a rifle hidden in the body of said cane.
 * Raphael in the SoulCalibur series has a gentleman's cane as an unlockable joke weapon.
 * Fallout: New Vegas features the White Glove Society, who run the Ultra-Luxe Casino. Their shtick is nice suits, slightly creepy masks, and Cane Fu. Due to having to hand over your weapons to (peacefully) enter the casino, The easiest way to arm yourself should shit hit the fan inside the casino is to arm yourself with one of their canes. It's at this point the player discovers that, holy shit, this thing is pretty powerful.
 * Radius and Sprigg from Chrono Cross both use canes to beat on monsters, and are both good examples of When Elders Attack.
 * Sly Cooper's weapon of choice is a cane with a hook at the end that he can use to cling onto objects to swing around.

Web Original

 * Terezi from Homestuck, Her STRIFE Specibus is her walking cane (she's blind), which also doubles as a multi-sectioned stave in a Shout-Out to Daredevil.
 * In Ruby Quest, Red uses his signature cane in this way more than once.

Western Animation

 * Looney Tunes short All Abir-r-r-d!: Sylvester and Tweety are on a train. When Sylvester tries to grab Tweety, the conductor hits Sylvester's paw with a cane.
 * This is a favorite move of elderly Bruce Wayne in Batman Beyond.
 * The Riddler displays some mad Cane Fu skills in the Batman the Brave And The Bold episode "The Criss-Cross Conspiracy!", using his cane to deflect a barrage of batarangs.
 * Scrooge McDuck on DuckTales (1987), even more frequently than in the comics, most prominently in Duck Tales the Movie Treasure of The Lost Lamp. His cane is also occasionally shown to contain various gadgets, from a laser beam (when he adopted the nighttime vigilante Superhero hobby common for billionaires) to a magnet he uses to pick up spare coins, so perhaps he even has a collection.

Real Life

 * Most airports will prevent you from carrying a cane onto your flight unless it's apparent that you need it to support yourself. This is presumably because any terrorist trying to hijack a plane with a stick would be too stupid to pretend to limp. Or you need it because you are blind. The airline can require you to bring a doctor's note, and this has been the case since well before 9/11. They also tend to frown upon the more explicitly weaponized canes that are weighted, have additional knobs for joint locks, or have the pointed hook end.
 * Sir Kief av Kierstad, one-legged fighter in the Society for Creative Anachronism, has achieved knighthood with a single sword and crutch. As immortalized in Leslie Fish's Filk Song "The Cripples' Shield Wall."
 * Andrew Jackson once defeated a would-be assassin (whose guns jammed... all of them) with a cane. This was the first attempt to assassinate a US President; being in 1835, both of the assassin's guns were flintlocks.
 * In 1856, after Senator Charles Sumner berated Senator Andrew Butler for fighting for slavery (which included much ridicule on his mannerisms), Butler's nephew, Senator Preston Brooks, retaliated by beating him with his heavy cane until it broke. As would be expected in pre-Civil War America, Brooks was hailed a hero in the South (with Sumner the same in the North).
 * There's a form of martial arts invented by the French, "La Canne", that revolves around using a cane as a weapon. It's roughly similar to sabre fencing.
 * Similarly there is an obscure English style known as Bartitsu which uses a walking stick as it's primary weapon, along with throwing and punching. Not surprisingly, it draws heavily on La Canne, Judo, and Boxing.
 * Some versions of Hapkido include the hooked cane as one of the core weapons.
 * There are actual self-defense classes for the elderly. They're even nicknamed "Cane-Fu".