El Mariachi is a 1992 Mexican-American action film that is the debut of writer/director Robert Rodriguez. The Spanish language film was shot in the northern Mexican bordertown of Ciudad Acuña with a mainly amateur cast. The US$7,000 production was originally intended for the Mexican home video market, but executives at Columbia Pictures liked the film so much that they bought the American distribution rights. Columbia eventually spent several times more than the 16 mm film's original budget on 35 mm transfers, promotion, marketing and distribution. The success of Rodriguez's... directorial debut led him to create two further entries, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico , in what came to be known as the Mexico Trilogy. In 2011, the film was inducted into the Library of Congress to be preserved as part of its National Film Registry for being culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. In a small Mexican town, a ruthless criminal, nicknamed Azul , breaks out of jail and vows revenge on the local drug lord, Moco , who put him there in the first place, by using a guitar case which carries a small arsenal of guns.
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