Mexican-American filmmaker Robert Rodriguez burst upon the independent scene with a miraculous $7000 (shooting cost) action film geared for the Mexican Spanish-language video market. Touted as the cheapest film ever released by a studio, "El Mariachi" (1993) was a galvanizing send-up of Mexican action films, American Westerns and tough anti-hero movies informed by such auteurs as Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. It told the fast-moving story of a mariachi musician who arrives in a Mexican border town at the same time as a hit man. Violent complications ensue after they accidentally switch
