This past week I watched both Rocky Balboa and 300. Long ago, I learned to just watch movies for pure entertainment and then deconstruct them for fun afterwards. I enjoyed both these movies for the choreography of the fight scenes, as well as the guilty pleasure of watching eye candy cinematography (in the case of ‘300’) and reliving childhood nostalgia (in the case of ‘Rocky Balboa’). And it struck me how both films follow the same narrative.
What could possibly be similar about these two very different movies, set thousands of years apart.
One movie is about a Spartan king, who against overwhelming odds, and against the wishes of his council, takes a small contingent of warriors who embody old school values of toughness and discipline, and valiantly fends off the superior forces of the Persian Empire, led by an arrogant Xerxes.
The Quilting Sword 