I still remember my father dragging me to the cinema to catch all those "Rockies". He brought me to a few, didn't know which, but I remember seeing Rocky Jr. so it had to be the later ones. At home, he further fed me with "Rocky" protein-mix on tape.

My father is not a movie person. He has difficulties following plots even if it's a Jackie Chan. Till this date, the only thing he knows about Rocky Balboa is he's an underdog. Nevermind Rocky went bankrupt and everything, I doubt my father even knows Rocky has a son.

You see, my father is not much of a cinema person as well. Darkness invites sleep. And that's what he did. He didn't wake up until Rocky's theme started blasting through the cinema's loudspeaker from the front. It's time for Rocky's montage.

And that's exactly where all the Rocky tapes are wound. A Rocky session at home begins with the training montage followed immediately by the match finale. Any drama in between is butchered by the forward button.

Then later, I caught them again on TV and videos, at home, hotels, aboard a ship, on cable, et cetera. By then, I was just watching to kill time or fill in all the missing pieces and laugh at the way Rocky talks. I couldn't care less watching Rambo (at that point in time, Rambo's popularity had superceded Rocky's, with the cartoon series, action figures, and all) throw a punch.

But I care for "Rocky Balboa" (even if it's obviously part of Stallone's retirement fund). This whole Rocky and Stallone out-of-retirement thing has quite the pulling-effect on me--sort of a must-see--spurred by curiosity to see if Stallone's ego is big enough to ensure Rocky wins. Of course with the craze for alternate endings these days, he managed to do both.

The obligatory montage and Rocky theme remained in "Rocky Balboa", although thankfully (and tastefully) most of the horns, choir, and electronica twangs had been replaced with more contemporary orchestraic sounds. Still sound kinda dated to me though, I don't know, maybe it's just a nolstagic ringing. What is obviously missing in "Rocky Balboa" is the embarassing "Eye Of The Tiger", which I think's a good thing. The song had been spoofed so many times in comedies it would probably make Rocky looked like a wanker.

I didn't laugh at the Italian Stallion's speech this time around. I cringed. His monologues were too long and his co-stars just stood there with that dumbfounded awe-look on their face. I bet that Peter Petrelli guy--as Rocky Jr.--had difficulty in one of those scenes that he had to resort to his I-am-so-confuse-about-my-powers expression.

Speaking of Peter Petrelli, I think I saw Masi Osaka in the end-credits where he did one of his "Yatta!" outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It might have been taken from the previous "Rockies" though, so it might not had been him, not sure.

Like all Rocky fans in the end-credits, my father took a photo in front of the museum when he was in The States a few years back. Thanks to his uninteresting demeanour, he just stood there. I remember asking him about Rocky's statue when he showed us the photo.

"There was a statue?" he said.