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
Mariachi Divas de Cindy Shea a high-schooler, she was a victim of pranks and was told to give up trumpet because it was "too macho". In the early 1990s, Shea obtained a professional gig as trumpet player for an all-female mariachi band called Mariachi Las Alondras. When that band broke up in 1999, she formed another, calling the group Mariachi Divas. A big break for the new group came in September 2003, when they were discovered by Stan Freese, talent booking director for Disney Resorts, and became the official mariachi band of Disneyland Resort. They quickly became a fixture at Disney's California Adventure theme park