El Mariachi is a 1992 Robert Rodriguez production.

El Mariachi was filmed with a budget of only USD $7,000. It became a success, inspiring a new wave of young producers to film low-budget movies. Some other low-budget successes, such as Clerks and The Blair Witch Project, followed El Mariachi.

El Mariachi was shot in the northern border town of Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, filmed in Spanish and aimed at a Hispanic audience. Columbia Pictures bought the rights for the film and brought Rodriguez along to film the English sequel, Desperado, in 1995.

The storyline of El Mariachi centers around a Mariachi music player who gets mistaken for a jail fugitive by a gang of drug dealers. While fleeing a local hotel after they try to kill him, he falls in love with the woman who takes him in. He is actually forced to kill many of the gangsters who are mistakenly pursuing him.

El Mariachi won different international awards, and writer/producer/director Rodriguez went on to gain international fame, being interviewed on such shows as Sábado Gigante, etc; and going on to make more, Hollywood company backed movies, such as The Faculty.

Desperado, the sequel to El Mariachi, helped enhance the fame of Antonio Banderas and introduced Salma Hayek to English-speaking audiences. In 2003, a sequel of Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, was released.

Cast

• Carlos Gallardo , El Mariachi
• Consuelo Gómez , Domino
• Peter Marquardt , Moco
• Reinol Martínez , Azul
• Jaime de Hoyos , Bigoton
• Ramiro Gómez , waiter
• Jesús López Viejo , clerk
• Luis Baro , Domino's assistant
• Óscar Fabila , the boy

External link