One way of demonstrating Ludicrous Mêlée Accuracy (or even Improbable Aiming Skills) is combining it with Bomb Disposal: cutting (or shooting) the fuses.
See also Wire Dilemma. Not to be confused with Cutting the Knot, though it can be an example of that at the same time.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Fullmetal Alchemist: King Bradley stops Fuu's Taking You with Me by cutting the fuses off the grenades strapped to Fuu's stomach.
- Ninja Scroll: Dakuan chucks his sake gourd at Zakuro, dousing her with it, then grabs a candle to light her up...only for a thrown knife to cut the wick.
- In One Piece, Vivi manages to cut the fuse of the cannon at the last second, only to discover that the bomb inside is a Time Bomb.
- Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin cuts the fuses off of the bombs Katsu throws at him. In another instance, he swings his sword so fast the wind blows out the fuses.
Comic Books
- Kid Colt, Outlaw: In #109, the Kid demonstrates his Improbable Aiming Skills by firing a shot that severs the burning fuse on a cannon, in what the narration describes as "a feat of marksmanship unequalled in recorded history".
Comic Strips
- In a Terry and the Pirates strip, the Dragon Lady shoots through the fuse of an explosive that has been stuffed in Connie's mouth!
Films — Live-Action
- The Soviet action movie The Crown of the Russian Empire or The Elusives Again had this in the intro. One of the Elusives shoots the fuse to thwart a bomb on the rails before a moving train.
Literature
- In one Animorphs book, Ax stops an explosion by cutting the trail of black powder before the fire could reach the barrels of explosives. Unfortunately, when he cut the trail, his blade made a spark...
Live-Action TV
- In the mini-series A Man Called Intrepid, a German officer discovers the bombs set on the ferry carrying heavy water to Germany. He pulls the fuse and sighs with relief...only there's more than one fuse in case one of them fails.
- Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: Phryne shots a burning length of film that is being used as an improvised Powder Trail in "Framed for Murder". However, the burning film flips and lands on the piled celluloid, reigniting it.
- Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger has a Doggie Kruger deflecting a bullet with his sword to cut the fuse, right when it's about to reach the limit and blow Swan up.
- Reality show Top Shot had one round where the contestants tried to shoot through a bomb's fuse to stop it from going off. It was one of the most difficult challenges on the show.
Video Games
- In the Villain episode 5 of Batman: The Telltale Series, cutting the yellow wire deactivates the bombs. This is Chekhov's Skill later at the dinner party, when Bruce throws a knife blade to cut the yellow wire from a distance.
- On the Game Over screen of the original Final Fight, you're tied up with a bomb next to you. Continuing means a knife drops in to cut the fuse.
- One of the challenges in the Mad Dog McCree arcade game involved shooting the fuse off some dynamite to save the prospector.
- Resident Evil 4 (Remake): Leon is able to cut the fuse of dynamite thrown at him should be perform a perfect parry on it, preventing it from exploding on him.
Western Animation
- Looney Tunes:
- In Dough Ray Me-ow, Louie the parrot tries to disarm a stick of dynamite by cutting off the top of the fuse with a pair of scissors; against all logic, no matter how many times he cuts off the fuse, it just keeps continuing to spark further down the stick.
