Product Description

EL MARIACHI: All he wants is to be is a mariachi, like his father, his grandfather and his great grandfather before him. But the town he thinks will bring him luck brings only a curse of deadly mistaken identity. Forced to trade his guitar for a gun, the mariachi is playing for his life in this critically-acclaimed film debut from director Robert Rodriguez. Financed with earnings from a month-long stay in a research hospital, this astonishing action adventure was shot with no second takes, using borrowed equipment and a talented cast of unknowns. The riveting result is a wild bullet-dodging ride through a world of bandido violence, from the suspense of the opening shoot-out to the tragedy of the unexpected conclusion. With little more than a great story and a lot of heart, Rodriguez has created pure movie pleasure, setting new standards for independent filmmaking, and establishing himself as an unquestionable talent. "An enormously entertaining movie." (Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES). DESPERADO: Antonio Banderas, Joaquim De Almeida, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin and Quentin Tarantino star in this stylish shoot-'em-up described as a south-of-the-border Pulp Fiction. Director Robert Rodriguez follows up his legendary debut film, El Mariachi, with this sexy sequel about a mysterious guitar player (Banderas) searching for vengeance against the men who murdered his girlfriend. ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO: Leaping back into action, gun-slinging, guitar-toting hero "El Mariachi" is back in town in ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO, as director Robert Rodriguez delivers the epic final chapter of his pulp Western trilogy. Starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes, Enrique Iglesias and Willem Dafoe ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO is a full-frontal assault.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16985 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2005-11-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 286 minutes

Customer Reviews

Special Editions all around
There is some confusion as to the releases in this set, based on the reviews so far and the limited information in the amazon.com description. I hesitated to buy it at first based on the fact that the back of the outer case simply had credits and the typical info box for all three films giving the languages and aspect ratios of the films, but nothing as to the other content of the discs contained.

Here is what is included in the set:

Disc 1:
El Mariachi (Special Edition)
- 1.85:1 Widescreen Anamorphic/81 Minutes
- Director's Commentary
- Robert Rodriguez's Short Film "Bedhead"
- "10-Minute Film School"

Disc 2:
Desperado (Special Edition)
- 1.85:1 Widescreen Anamorphic/103 Minutes
- Director's Commentary
- "10 More Minutes with Robert Rodriguez: Anatomy of a Shootout"

Disc 3:
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
- 1.78:1 Widescreen Anamophic/102 Minutes
- Director's Commentary
- Deleted Scenes
- Film is Dead: An Evening with Robert Rodriguez
- Ten-Minute Flick School
- Ten-Minute Cooking School
- Inside Troublemaker Studios
- The Anti-Hero's Journey
- The Good, the Bad and the Bloody: Inside KNB FX

So this set re-packages the most recent release of each of the titles into a great little package. Little being the key word - this set uses the slim-line DVD cases often used in TV on DVD packaging and most recently seen in the Ghostbusters 1 & 2 Double Feature Gift Pack. Two slim-line cases take up the space of a single standard DVD case, so this set with 3 slim-line cases is nice and compact.

The transfer of El Mariachi here is the newest one ("From the original negatives supervised by Robert Rodriguez") not the older 1.66:1 transfer from the earlier Director's Double Feature release.

Also worthy of note is that all 3 film are Anamorphic despite the packaging indicating that El Mariachi and Desperado are just "Widescreen" while Once Upon a Time in Mexico is listed as "Anamorphic Widescreen." Columbia Tri-Star has always had a bad habit of not indicating when releases were anamorphic although most of their early releases were in fact anamorphic.

Loved it!
Bought it for the second movie - Desperado - which I loved, but ended up loving the first movie - El Mariachi - even more! Even though it's subtitled and in Spanish, it gives the beginning of the story and is campy and gritty, obviously low-budget but it's great. If you like foreign films and anything to do with Robert Rodriguez, you'd love this set of movies and it'd be worth adding to your collection.

Via con dios!
This is a great deal. These 3 movies are amazing and the price cant be beat. El Mariachi is in Spanish with no option for english over dubbing but there are subtitles and it is a great movie. Desperado is just classic and Once apon a time in Mexico was surprisingly really good as well.