Action hero Rambo may make a return to the big screen for one last battle, Hollywood veteran Sylvester Stallone said in Rome where his latest gun-toting buddy flick screened its world premiere.

If my damn body holds up, it’ll be really good

“The Rambo thing, that’s why I don’t retire. I just see a guy unable to go home. He needs war and I see him dying there,” Stallone said about the Vietnam veteran he played in a series of four films from 1982 to 2008.

“If my damn body holds up, it’ll be really good. Otherwise it won’t be Rambo fighting, it’ll be Rambo fighting arthritis,” the 66-year-old said.

Stallone also said he hoped that, after Rambo and Rocky the boxer, he had created an icon for the new generation with his performance as a hired killer with a heart in Walter Hill’s 1980s-style action film Bullet to the Head.

Under the tag-line “Revenge never gets old”, the film tells the tale of mercenary Jimmy Bobo (Stallone) who unwillingly links up with a straight-laced, technologically-savvy cop (Sung Kang) when their partners are murdered.

“To be able to have played both Rambo and Rocky, one a dark character, the other optimistic, was very unusual. They were iconic. Jimmy is a combination of the both, maybe he can be such a character for this generation,” Stallone said.

Bobo, whose philosophical insights include “sometimes you have to abandon your principles and do what’s right”, takes his new ally on a shooting spree before a final showdown in which he must defeat the enemy in an axe fight.

The film, which at its best appears to be an ironic take on the wooden dialogues and predictable suspense scenes from old action B-movies, saw director Hill awarded Rome film festival’s first Maverick Director prize.

Stallone said he “wasn’t sure the film was going to work... I borrowed from other films but also learnt from my past”, he said.