Brick Break: Difference between revisions

Martial artists showing they can break bricks and/or boards with a single barehanded blow because they're martial artists. They often [[Kiai]] while doing so.

 

 

The fancy version of this is to break not the first object you hit, but the one behind it, or a specific one in a sequence. Thus demonstrating you have not only brawn, but control. The usual subversion is for someone to hurt their hand after failing to break the boards/bricks. Doing this at various levels of difficulty is often one of the criteria for advancement in rank. This can be taken to [[Up to Eleven]] levels in fiction, where characters are allowed to break the bricks with [[Finger-Poke of Doom|one finger]] or [[Psychic Powers|their minds]] or whatever.

** Ryouga learned a technique later in the series that allowed him to break boulders with a [[Finger-Poke of Doom]].

*** Actually, any kind of solid ''non-living'' matter he could punch his finger through (for starters, he could WRITE on stone by punching holes with his finger prior to mastering this technique), so this is useless used ''directly'' against living things (this doesn't make him shy to explode boulders and open craters ''near'' enemies, though)

** Also, Mr. Satan breaks a stack of tiles to show how powerful he is. (Cell was not impressed.) Also a slight subversion, as he always, without fail, breaks all but ONE brick... which still settles him as a [[Badass Normal]].

* In ''[[Doctor Slump]]'', there's a scene where Suppaman tries to convince Arale that he's impressive by setting up a stack of five clay tiles and breaking three of them with a punch (And boasting about it afterward while holding is sore fist). Arale responds by [[Widget Series|casually punching the Earth and cracking it in half]].

** [[Love Hina]]'s Motoko is capable of cutting objects with her bare hands. She can even cut objects behind other objects without harming the front object. This is a result of her martial arts style, the Shinmei Ryu. Note that this style is practiced by Negima's Setsuna, Eishun, and a few others. Guess why.

* An episode of [[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]] featured a contest where Croagunks had to break several bricks in order to proceed, using the [[Trope Namer|Brick Break]] technique mentioned below. Brock's Croagunk managed to break all of them. Meowth, disguised as a Croagunk, only managed to break his hand.

** Better than that: it was actually a ruse to gain members since the challengers were breaking actual tombstones while the Karate Club were using weaker ones. Kokoa is a superstrong vampire, so this didn't matter.

* In ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'', one of Souther's soldiers demonstrates his strength by breaking a huge rock in half with his head. On the very next page, Kenshiro breaks the man's skull with a single fist.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In the original ''[[The Karate Kid]]'', Daniel sees a movie poster centred on a man kicking a log in half.

Don't know. Never been attacked by tree. }}

** ''[[The Karate Kid]] 2'' features this with a number (6 to 10) sheets of ice. Of course, only the Karate Kid can do it.

** This same line was used by the bad guy in Van Damme's ''Bloodsport'', when Dux was able to shatter a single brick on the bottom of a stack.

* In ''[[Kung Pow]]'', The [[Chosen One]] proves his strength with one-and no-handed pushups, and punching a board. He starts the punch, stops just in front of the board, pokes it with his finger, and... it explodes, sending the two people behind it flying.

* Parodied in the ''[[Bratz]]'' movie, where the failure to accomplish this is mistaken for an attempt at comedy.

 

== Literature ==

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* Subverted by Hudzen in the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "The Last Day", who demonstrates his strength by breaking a brick in half with his penis.

* A ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' skit had Will Ferrell try to do this, but failed to break the board, yelling "What kind of wood was that?"

* Done in a "How it's done" manner by Phoebe in ''[[Beakman's World]]''. And yes, Lester breaks his hand on the board beforehand.

* Done to show how 'hard' Rob Riggle is on his ''[[The Daily Show|Daily Show]]'' leaving montage. "BOARD!"

* Cliff did this in an episode of ''[[Cheers]]'', using his head, after claiming to be a karate expert. Diane had to sneak him off to a hospital.

* Max claimed to be able to do this to a large number of wooden boards on ''[[Get Smart]]''. It used the usual "would you believe it" [[Running Gag]], until he was eventually claiming to be able to break particle board or something.

* Parodied in an episode of ''[[The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air]]''; Will goes to a karate instructor for lessons but finds nothing in the dojo but a board on two cinderblocks. He stomps the board and makes martial arts noises, but a moment later the sensei (played by [[The Karate Kid|Pat Morita]]) comes in, looks down, and asks "What happened to my coffee table?"

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Breaking bricks is the [[Fanon]] behind why fighting is [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors|super effective]] against rock, ice, and steel.

** The TM/HM Rock Smash counts as well, which has the secondary effect of lowering the opponent's defense stat.

** The Block Smash event of the Pokéathlons in ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver|HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'', which involves breaking stacks of cement blocks.

* Kim Kaphwan breaks several boards while they're in the air with his feet in one of his ''[[Capcom vs. SNK 2 Mark of the Millennium|Capcom vs. SNK 2]]'' intros.

** He does one better in his intro in the ''Real Bout [[Fatal Fury]]'' games: he breaks a column of ice blocks with one kick.

* The [[Bonus Round]] in the first ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' was based around breaking rocks in this manner. The "Test your Might" tests were reintroduced in ''Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance'', but dropped thereafter. For the record, it started with wood, then went to stone, steel, ruby and finally diamond.

** Then during a fight later on, you see the same guy doing it to an enemy soldier's ''back''.

* The first episode of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987]]'' show had Hamato Yoshi explaining where he got his other name, narrating over another scene.

* ''[[Swat Kats]]'' had this, but with ''cinderblocks''.

* ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures]]'': Jade signs Jackie up for this during a martial arts tournament. When he protests, she points out his motto: "The greatest victory is the battle not fought. Thought you liked to ''avoid'' hand-to-hand combat?"

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[[Category:Skills and Training Tropes]]