Bring It

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

All right! Bring it on!

While enemies or rivals usually provoke the protagonist into foolishly attacking them so that they can get the advantage, there can be times when the protagonist may have sudden confidence that he will win the fight and will taunt the enemy with something like "Come on! Bring it to me!" before unleashing their most powerful attack on their victim.

A Bring It taunt can also come in the form of body gestures, such as finger waggling, moving a finger or the whole hand towards themselves ("Come get me" for example {and sometimes done using both hands}) to provoke anger, turning their backs towards the enemy and slapping their butt (usually accompanied by "Nyah nyah nyah-nyah boo-boo!"), etc. While villains may also fall under this trope, it's usually the heroes who will challenge the enemy with this trope.

See also: Asskicking Pose, Finger Wag, and Trash Talk.

Not to be confused with the Bring It On film series, which is totally different from what this is.

Examples of Bring It include:

Anime and Manga

  • Ash's Treecko and Buizel from Pokémon do this at least once.
    • Paul's Electivire does the hand sign version of this to a nearly beaten Infernape during their battle. Big mistake.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's,[please verify] at one point Vita is badly wounded, has a badly damaged Device, is almost out of cartridges, and is staring down an army of Mecha-Mooks. "Bring it on."
  • Rock Lee and Might Guy from Naruto frequently use the full-finger pose like the picture above.
    • The title of the ending theme dedicated to them actually translates to "Bring It".
  • Characters in the dub of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX like making responses such as:

Judai: Dude, it is totally brunged.
and
Kaiser: Consider it brought!

  • Some characters in Shaman King love this, especially Horohoro. For example:

Horohoro: Bring it, dude!
Yoh: Consider it brought!

Comic Books

  • In one of the most famous Batman stories, "Night of the Stalker" (From Detective Comics #439), Batman steals the keys out of the car of a bunch of thugs who have just shot and killed a married couple in front of their young son. He just stands there and jingles them when the panicked thugs begin tearing around looking for the keys. They can have them. If they want them that bad.

Thug who was cool and collected seconds before: He's the devil!

Mutant Leader: Batman! Face me, fool! I kill you! I eat your heart! I show you who rules Gotham City!
Batman: Okay, boy...Show me.

Religion of Crime Acolyte: I will give the High Madame your still-beating heart!
Batwoman: Bring it. (Kicks her ass) Yeah, that's what I thought.

Film

  • Norbit.[context?]
  • Terminator 2: Sarah Connor fires shot after shot, driving the T-1000 toward the vat of molten metal, and one step away she runs out of ammo. The T-1000's response? A smirk and a slow, utterly delicious Finger Wag.
  • Transformers: "Bring It!!" shouts one of the soldiers but this wasn't to the enemy, it was a cue to their backup to open fire.
  • In Superman Returns, Lois Lane tells Lex Luthor that other countries will come to aid if he should sink the U.S. in favor of his own man-made country. His response is the trope title.
  • Done by Leeloo in The Fifth Element, when she fights the Mangalores during the opera on the space ship. Beautifully accompanied by a melodious chord sung by the opera diva, whose on-screen concert was running at the same time.
  • Subverted in the movie Kiss of the Dragon, wherein a fight scene temporarily grinds to a halt as both combatants pose and give the "come and get it" hand gesture, neither wanting to fight where the terrain is to their opponent's advantage.
  • Undercover Brother
    • After Lance kills two of The Man's guards, he beckons to the remaining guard with both hands and says "Come on!"
    • The fight between Undercover Brother and Mr. Feather parodies this, where the bring it taunts degenerate into a break dancing contest until Mr. Feather finally gets frustrated and charges. Best of all, this was set to Michael Jackson's "Beat It".
  • The Matrix. Agent Smith cracking his neck; Neo brushing his nose or gesturing with his fingers; Morpheus' awesome stance; and that's just to start.
  • Of course, the three above stole their gesture clearly from Bruce Lee, as seen in many of his movies.
    • And wiping his nose meant the same thing.
  • The first Batman movie: Bats beats up a gang and then beckons to the last guy standing, as if to say, "Come get some."
  • Ice Age. Sid does this gesture to a tree that he mistakes for a foe.
  • Disaster Movie. Calvin does this gesture to Kung Fu Panda as he prepares to fight him for slapping the Enchanted Princess across the face.
  • Troy: Achilles after killing a very large warrior very easily says, "Is there no one else?!"
  • Big Trouble in Little China. David Lo Pan does this to Jack Burton (using his index finger) as Burton is driving his truck toward him.
  • Bruce Lee's use of the gesture is affectionately parodied in Drive. Marc Dacascos' character Toby Wong is attacked by mooks armed with taser wands. After struggling to fight them off with his bare hands (not being able to block the weapons directly, he has to block their arms) he steals one of his opponents boots (from their feet, during the fight). Cue a delivery of the Bring it On with boots worn over his hands like gloves, and an ass-kicking ensues.
  • The Muppets Wizard of Oz. Dorothy Gale and the Wicked Witch of the West do a two-handed gesture to each other as they prepare to fight.
  • The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lavagirl In 3-D. Max does this to one of Mr. Electric's wires when it tries to electrocute Max.
  • Tombstone. "I'm your huckleberry."
  • Hoodwinked!. Boingo does this with his left ear to Red Puckett after he says to her, "Oh, you best be fearin' the Ear, baby."
  • Flushed Away. Rita Malone shouts out to The Toad's henchrats in the Jammy Dodger, "Come and have a go if you think you're fast enough!".
  • Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Dr. Totenkopf's android agent makes a The Matrix style hand gesture to Sky Captain just before fighting him outside the rocket ship.
  • Tank Girl. Kesslee makes the gesture to Tank Girl's tank just before it starts firing at him.
  • The Mask. The title character uses a two-handed gesture to the gang members who try to rob him, and Dorian Tyrell (while wearing the mask) does the same to his boss Niko during their final confrontation as an invitation to shoot him.
  • In Dog Soldiers, this crosses with Tempting Fate: Spoon, out on his own at night in werewolf-infested woods, lights a flare and yells the classic British, football-terrace-chant take on the idea; "COME AND HAVE A GO IF YOU THINK YOU'RE HARD ENOUGH!" True, he's acting as the distraction, but given his general level of badassery it's a fair bet that he means it.
  • In the first Star Wars film, Han Solo says this, upon Luke chastising him for making too much noise when trying to sneak around the Death Star.

Yoda: If so powerful you are, why leave?

Kirk: "Khan, I'm laughing at the "superior intellect!"

    • And the best part is, Khan had already won at that point. He could have safely left Kirk to die. Kirk's taunt enrages Khan and drags him back to a new engagement where Kirk does more damage.
  • The goalies in Shaolin Soccer's final match both do this with mixed results.
  • While waiting for the Flynns to come back to the Grid in Tron: Legacy, Clu has this line: "Your move, Flynn, come on. Come on!"
  • Devil's Den from 2006 - One of the characters does the "bring it" fingers in the same pose as The Rock does in the picture on this page, but with the twist of giving the middle finger instead of raising all four fingers.
  • Hoodwinked Too! Hood VS. Evil. An 18-year-old Red does this to Moss, who won't allow Red to cross his bridge and orders her to leave.
  • From the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre- The parareplegic Uncle Monty begins to pound his cane on the floor and chant "Bring It", in response to another character calling him crazy. It comes off as quite intimidating despite Monty being confined to a wheelchair.
  • The Fellowship of the Ring:

Nazgûl: Give up the Halfling, she-elf.
Arwen: (draws sword) If you want him...come and claim him!

  • Fright Night. Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent confront vampire Jerry Dandridge inside his mansion while attempting to rescue Amy from him.

Charley: Where's Amy?
Jerry: Up here. All you have to do is get by me. [Makes beckoning gesture with his index finger]

  • In Real Steel, after Atom's voice command system is broke from the onslaught Zeus gave him and is now running purely on Shadow Mode on Charlie, Charlie makes Atom give a taunt motion to Zeus, making the crow go wild cheering for the underdog Atom, and starting the second pummeling that starts Charlie's rope-a-dope.
  • In "Scooby Doo Monsters Unleashed," a tense Fred says out loud, "Bring it."
    • He then gets hit in the face with a shovel, and with a dazed look says "He brought it!" before falling down.
  • In Predator, Dutch attempts to lure the Predator into a trap by standing in the (hidden) trap yelling "I'm here, come and kill me!" while making a beckoning gesture.
  • Leonidas in 300 responds to the Persian demand for the Spartans' weapons: "Come and take them!"
  • "Yo, she-bitch. [Dramatic Gun Cock] Let's go."

Literature

  • Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett: Mr. Nutt is revealed to be an orc at the end of a football match. He admits it to the crowd and, for all those who aren't willing to leave him in peace, his response is, "Come on if you think you're hard enough."
    • An even more awesome instance of a similar phrase is seen in Pratchett's Thud!, as a troll army approaches a lightly armed police line. The caller, who shouldn't even be in the line, is a city accountant.
  • Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files, to an insanely powerful Black Cloaked Evil Sorcerer:

Bring it, Darth Bathrobe!

"Bring it!" I screamed back at the naagloshi. [...] "Bring it! Bring it, you dickless freak!"

Live-Action TV

  • Sam Tyler to Gene Hunt in an episode of Life On Mars. Gene responds by just charging at him.
  • Drusilla does a very creepy 8-finger Bring It On to Kendra near the end of the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
  • Eliot from Leverage does this all the time. It's practically his Catch Gesture.
  • An invitation to political combat in an episode of The West Wing: C.J. has skillfully manipulated the press and goaded the Republican Congress into replacing a respected, fair-minded special prosecutor with someone from their own partisan agenda. The episode ends with C.J. and the staff watching the televised announcement while she pops a bottle of champagne and says "Come and get us."
  • In Iron Chef America after Duff Goldman called out Iron Chef Michael Symon, Symon smiles evilly and makes a "Bring it" motion with his hands.
  • Storage Wars: Texas has this as the Catch Phrase of Lesa Lewis as she bids. She's not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the others and they know it.
  • The stance and gesture Bong-soon makes while saying "Come on" during the fight in episode 9 of Strong Girl Bong-soon (it can be seen at 2:20-2:25 in the video on the show's Page of Awesome), which is also a quote from/Shout-Out to the 2013 Korean action movie New World.

Music

All you wounded, those of you who can
Pick yourselves off the ground, hurry back
Tell your leader YOU'LL NEED MORE MEN!

Professional Wrestling

  • As indicated by the above DVD cover image, WWE's The Rock has this as one of his many Catch Phrases, often accompanied by an equally-famous beckoning hand gesture.
  • More recently a variant has been used by John Cena: "You want some? Come get some!"

Video Games

  • The boss of Sector X in Star FOX 64 gestures with its fingers to taunt you when it comes back to life after you seemingly beat it.
  • Captain Falcon in Super Smash Bros. Brawl has a taunt that makes him outstretch his hand and bend his fingers back and forth while saying "COME ON!"
    • Fox also has a similar taunt.
    • Many fighting games have taunts that amount to fancy ways of saying "Bring it on!"
      • "Show me your moves!"
        • Sonic the Hedgehog just loves doing this. Seriously. One taunt, he does a flip while tsking you. Another, he breakdances while shouting, "Come on, step it up!" And of course:
    • In Melee, Link is another good example; he puts his sword away and nonchalantly brushes his hair back.
    • Princess Zelda sighs disappointingly at how much you suck.
  • Also, Liquid Ocelot after every round of the final boss fight in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
  • In the first level of Devil May Cry 4. During the tutorial segment where the player becomes adjusted with the jump and dodge actions of the game, they player is tested by having to avoid a barrage of bullets from Dante. If the player is hit, Dante uses the beckoning hand gesture as to taunt them.
    • In the first and third games (and the fourth?), Dante can taunt his enemies with one of the shoulder buttons. In the original game he does the beckoning hand gesture, and if the button is depressed hard in the middle, he'll use both hands. Taunting actually helps build your Devil Trigger gauge (in the third game it builds your Style/Combo meter, and Dante's taunt changes depending on the meters current rank, and he'll also use his voice as well).
      • It was the R2 button in DMC 1 while it was moved to the Select button in 3 and 4, although you can re-map it to the shoulder button if you wished. Dante's and Nero's taunts also changed depending on the current rank, and is randomly chosen from a set, but they always restore a set amount. In 1, if you managed to get the double-handed version, it would double the DT recovery.
  • City of Heroes has emotes of this nature. The "Taunt" ones range from doing a pulling gesture with both hands to simply holding hand out and waving the fingers towards yourself. A Katana Scrapper using "Calling the Wolf" will draw his sword and point it at the target as if they are at a fencing match. The "Come Get Some" gesture is the typical slap on the butt.
  • Ganondorf does this to Link in the final battle in Twilight Princess whenever he successfully attacks and knocks down Link, gesturing at him.
    • It should be noted that this is an explicit Call Back to the original Game Cube trailer featuring Link and Ganondorf, where the same thing happened.
  • Majora's Wrath will do this as well if he can't reach you with his tentacle whips.
  • Tony in Scarface the World Is Yours shouts some variations of this trope during his Blind Rage attack. Relatedly, he can do this any time at the press of the button, even when nobody is around. So he's simply screaming angry taunts to nothing at all.
  • Final Fantasy VIII's Seifer has a penchant for it, most memorably taunting Squall in their training duel in the very opening FMV of the game.
    • All the characters of Final Fantasy X use a gesture on their enemies to "bring it" when they use the ability Provoke. Auron does a gesture with his hands, Wakka points at the enemy and them himself, Lulu blows a kiss, Kimarhi wags his tail, Rikku slaps her ass and makes a silly face, Yuna seemingly calls out to the enemy and makes a gesture in the form of hello, and Tidus does a body gesture while also vocally taunting the foe and is the only character who uses his voice to taunt.
  • Sentinels in Final Fantasy XIII gesture and catcall when using Steelguard and Mediguard. Be prepared to hear Fang mumble, "Wouldya lookit me?" a lot when fighting Bonus Bosses.
  • Terry Bogard's famous Engrish lines, "Come on, get serious!" or "Hey, c'mon, c'mon!"
  • Ryo Sakazaki's "Ora Ora!"
  • In Oblivion, ogres frequently make taunting hand gestures when opponents are keeping their distance.
  • In Resident Evil 5, pressing down the Analog Sticks causes your character to taunt the enemy. Chris Redfield bends slightly down in a fighting stance and mutters "Come on, Come on!". It actually works and distracts the enemy from your partner.
  • In Mischief Makers, one mini-boss fight is a dodge ball match with a limited number of balls. If one tries to horde all the ammo on their side of the field, the boss will slap it's butt at you until you throw something.
  • Lee in Tekken 5 gets one of these. One of his stance changes causes him to lean back into a defensive stance, beckon the opponent, and say, "Come on."
  • Bayonetta. "Do you want to touch me?"
  • Legend of Mana actually has a two-handed sword move called Bring It On- the user does a false swing, jumps back, gives the default "bring it on" gesture, and smashes the enemy to kingdom come.
  • In Mega Man 7, Freeze Man beckons at you to make the first move. He'll wait as long as he has to.
  • The World Ends With You example: Starting a chain battle at low health with Beat as your partner will lead to a belligerent, "Bring it, yo!"
  • One of Gene's taunts is "Bring it on." Taunting automatically pisses off any enemy who sees it, so it works.
  • In Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Richter begins most battles against you with a taunting "Come on !" But if you come near him at that moment, he's gonna unleash hell upon you. Literally.
  • Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia says it as a taunt.
  • The entirety of Don Flamenco's boxing strategy in Punch-Out!!!! is to goad you into making the first move, then countering it. That is, unless you've hit his Berserk Button. His Wii lines accentuate this. "Venga, venga!"
  • In Crisis Core, this trope almost marks the beginning and end of an era. In the opening cutscene, Zack calls, "Come and get it!" to a group of enemies in Shin-Ra trooper uniforms in a training exercise. At the end of the game, he calls the same thing to the actual Shin-Ra troopers as he charges them before they kill him.
  • Asura in Asura's Wrath says this to a demigod's meteor sized FINGER that is droping down to crush him like a bug. Guess who wins?
    • Also, in the tutorial, Augus does the single-waggling variation towards Asura.
  • Duke Nukem, of course. "Who wants some?" "Come get some!" "You wanna dance?"
  • The heroes in Artix Entertainment games love using this.
  • Everyone in the Gears of War games will bark at least one version of "bring it!" across the battlefield sooner or later. Marcus, being the Badass leader of the most Badass Crew in a World of Badass, appropriately has several of these.

Web Comics

Minmax: Bring it on!
Forgath: No! Don't bring it on! Bring nothing on!

Web Original

  • Chaka, the Ki mistress of Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. Facing a team of ninjas armed with swords and who-knows-what else, she's unarmed and wearing just a nightie. She gives all of them the Bruce Lee "come and get some" hand gesture.
  • The Gaia Online MMORPG zOMG! has a "Taunt" ring that creates various hand gestures. At the first Rage Level, it is simply moving a single finger towards the user, the second level features the user making an L with his/her finger, the third Rage Level gives enemies the middle finger, and the fourth level has two middle fingers.
  • Ronnie Cordova makes a few of these.
  • Unlikely Eden the first installment both ends with and is named by this trope.
  • Images of people (and animals) who appear to be asking for a fight are often captioned "Come at me, bro!"

Web Video

  • In Smokingmonkeyvideos, Scott does this gesture to the viewer when playing Rock, Paper, Scissors in one episode.
  • In Heat Fozzy, Jet Li does this gesture to Kermit the Frog.
  • In Monty Oum's Haloid, Samus makes a The Matrix style "come get me gesture" to MC. When she meets her? No. When they meet, just go at it, trading weapons fire, punches that by all rights should be going through armor, throw each other through buildings, and occasionally throw a Pelican at each other. Not the bird, the dropship. Then Samus gets Zero-suited, pulls out her laser whip, and then brings the "come get some" vibe.
  • Used at 1:47 here. One stick figure against the world!

Western Animation

  • Joe Swanson in Family Guy does this a few times when being faced by an enemy. Probably most humorously was when his wheelchair had been melted into his driveway and he had to face a giant mutated rat... and screamed the trope in its face.
    • Peter also does it in the second Chicken Fight.
  • As in the movie, Batman kept this throughout the animated series and Justice League: beats up a gang and then beckons to the last guy standing, as if to say, "Come Get Some."
  • The Justice League cartoon pretty much took this as far as it could go. It was once done by Darkseid. I repeat, Darkseid. To Superman.
    • Of course, they also subverted it much earlier. When the "MetaBrawl" promotion lost its star superhumans, monsters, and Flying Bricks, they were left with a bunch of Badass Normals. We see one match, which swiftly devolves to the fighters, on opposite sides of the ring, trying to goad each other into attack with repeated Bring It On gestures. The audience walked out. (Well, wouldn't you?)
  • Samurai Jack had one of these in one episode after defeating an army mooks:

Jack: WHO ELSE WANTS SOME!?

    • It should be noted that this episode was showing that Jack was having a bad day.
  • Omi and Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown tended to do this, especially to each other.
  • In Code Lyoko, the boys are fond of the Bruce Lee "come and get it" gesture. Notably, Odd with a Creeper he was boxing in episode "Franz Hopper", and Ulrich with his Polymorphic Clone in "Revelation".
  • Robin does this in the first episode of Teen Titans. Slade also does it to Robin several times.
  • Kim Possible does this while facing down a trio of commandos, all the while sporting a cocky grin and putting her other hand behind her back.
  • In the first episode of Jackie Chan Adventures, Jackie pulls one after his first running fight against the Dark Hand goons. He flips through the air to land perfectly in the stance atop a jungle gym in a playground. The goons cut and run.
  • Danny does it in an episode of Danny Phantom. As badass as he looked, Danny failed to win against his enemies during that time.
    • Same can be said in Batman Beyond, when Terry defeats every grunt but one, he decide to smile and beckon him with a finger. He gets the mess knocked out of him with a gun a few seconds later.
  • The season three opener of Transformers Animated: Optimus Prime squares off against Megatron in Omega Supreme's cockpit. The latter has lost his weapons but is still at least twice Prime's size.

"It appears you and I are destined to battle aboard this ship once more, Autobot.
"Bring it on, Decepticon."

  • In Kung Fu Panda, towards the end, Po holds up the Dragon Scroll and tells Tai Lung "You want it? Come and get it." Subverted in that Tai Lung punches Po out right then and there with almost zero effort. Double Subverted when Po rebounds into Tai Lung, and the tiger loses the scroll.
  • The Powerpuff Girls. The girls sing, "Wanna get some?" to a whole bunch of villains before attacking all of them in the musical episode "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey."
  • The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Cindy Vortex does this to Grandma Taters and tells her, "Bring it, wrinkles!" after Grandma says to Cindy, "You want a piece of me, honey?!" in the episode "One of Us."
  • American Dragon: Jake Long. In one episode, Jake (in the form of the American Dragon) does this gesture.
  • Robot Chicken. In one episode, an old lady shouts while driving a freaking tank down a suburban street, "Come and get some!". In another episode, Grandma Fu does this gesture to a mob of people who are trying to kill her.
  • My Life as a Teenage Robot. Jenny does this gesture to a giant, evil robot in one episode.
  • Superman, of all people, invoked this trope on several occasions, especially in the earlier episodes.

Superman: Who else wants a piece?!

  • An early episode of Venture Brothers has a couple of rifle-toting soldiers inform Brock that he isn't allowed to take his knife into the UN building. Brock spreads his arms menacingly and snarls "All right... TAKE IT FROM ME!" They back off. (Note that Brock has just wrestled and gutted an angry 20-foot alligator, and is covered in its blood.)
  • Hilariously done in the Kim Possible episode "Monkey Ninjas in Space" where Fredrick (a super-intelligent monkey on Kim's side) uses his voice synthesizer to say this to Monkey Fist.

Real Life

  • The Ancient Greek phrase "molon labe", supposedly uttered by "King Leonidas I of Sparta to Xerxes I of Persia when asked to lay down their arms and surrender, at the onset of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC)" (Wikipedia), literally translates as "come and take them", but a more idiomatic paraphrase would be "Bring It on".
    • Unlike what the translations would imply in modern culture, there was however no implication of "if you can". Leonidas was well aware that he and his troops would all die if they stood and fought (and, as a Spartan, welcomed it), but they were going to take far more than their own number down with them. And so they did, holding their ground long enough for an allied Athenian-lead fleet to crush the Persian navy in the Battle of Salamis, which doomed the Persian invasion to failure.
  • In a speech given in his re-election campaign, FDR made an open statement about the wealthy backers of his challenger (he cracked down on wall street to try to correct the actions that caused the stock market crash of 1929), he said this to the big businesses who opposed him:

"We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred!"

    • Later they did bring it in the form of The Business Plot, which was participated in by one Prescott Bush, whose descendant became President to deliver one of his own below.
  • From George W. Bush:
  • Back in 1997, during the Brit Awards, Liam Gallagher explains about to hit members of the Spice Girls, to which Melanie Chisholm responded with...

Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough.