El Mariachi gave special mention to director Robert Rodriguez and his ability to merge two separate genres of films—"the narcotraficante film, a Mexican police genre, and the transnational warrior-action film, itself rooted in Hollywood Westerns"—successfully "despite the constraints of a shoestring budget." The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: El Mariachi El Mariachi is a 1992 American contemporary western action film and the first installment in the saga that came to be known as Robert Rodriguez's "Mexico Trilogy". It marked the feature length debut of Rodriguez as writer and director. The Spanish language film was shot with a
El Mariachi the time) to bigger distribution companies where it started to get attention. When the sequel "Desperado" was produced, Antonio Banderas replaced Gallardo as the actor for the main character of the series. The filmmakers re-shot the final showdown from "El Mariachi" as a flashback sequence for Banderas' character in "Desperado". For the scene in which the Mariachi delivers a song in front of Dominó, Rodriguez hired a local entertainer. Recording the song with little more than a microphone held next to the musician, Rodriguez pitched the voice to match the voice of Mariachi actor Carlos Gallardo. The story of the