Rosario Tijeras

This was a really good Columbian film that starred Flora Martínez (Proof of Life) as a hit-woman who falls in love. That sounds like a formulaic movie that has been made a thousand times, but Martinez really brings home the film in a way that will keep you watching.

I don't know much about Columbia, but i was really fascinated with the celebration of death before the funeral of Jonhefe. They borough him to the bar and sat him in a chair and had a party, including a lap dance for the dead man. Makes it kind of a grind house film, but it was a film about love and loss.

It's worth a look just to see Martinez.

I went to go see this movie this summer in my visit to Colombia. I was completely under the movie's spell, went to see it twice. The character is so raw, so corrupted, but they demonstrate the beauty that can come from someone who's lived in her own hell. My family is originally from Colombia, so I understand the situations well. I saw a comment on a message board here saying that she wasn't a convincing hit-man...obviously you aren't familiar with the situations in Colombia, I've known of many female hit men that were beautiful...they just grew up in the wrong neighborhoods. Beauty isn't only found in the high-class society...it's everywhere, and if anything, her beauty gives her even more power. The fact that the movie goes back and forth, always returning the beginning of everything, and relating it to the end keeps you in tuned, its clever that the director chose not to point out the changes in time throughout the film...it keeps it flowing...no interruptions from the world that this movie has sucked you in. The main character has such a beautiful pain within her, you come out of the theater in love with her...whether you're are a man or woman..she'll dazzle you. The actors in this movie did an incredible job as well.

Overall, this movie mixes the drama of life, and laughs at it at some points. You're guaranteed to cry, laugh, gasp, claw your nails in your seat...and come out replaying all the scenes in your head.

In MHO this is probably the best film shot in Colombia to date. This film excels primarily due to the electrifying performance of the Colombian actress Flora Martinez in the role of Rosario Tijeras, a young and dangerous girl that works as a hit-woman to the Medellin drug cartel in the late 1980's.

Not only does the beautiful and talented Ms. Martinez realistically portraits the tormented girl that always gives a kiss before shooting to death his victims, but the rest of the cast gives a highly convincing performance. I didn't blink seeing the picture and neither will you....

Spanish actor Unax Ugalde gives an excellent performance as Antonio, the only pure soul to come close to the star-crossed Rosario. Some failings in pronouncing the local 'paisa' accent of Medellin, IMHO, doesn't in any way diminish his convincing performance.

Colombian actor Manolo Cardona, acting as Rosario's boyfriend Emilio, did also a very powerful performance, although he doesn't reach his co-stars levels.

Equally convincing are the performances of Mexican actor Rodrigo Oviedo as the hit-man Johnefe, Rosario's brother, and of Colombian actor Alonso Arias as the dangerous Rosario's former boyfriend Ferney.

The Mexican director Emilio Maillé did a very good job in this, his first full length feature film. Congratulations! The Marcelo Figueras's adapted script from the original novel by Jorge Franco maintains all the elements of this tale which will become part of Latin America's mythology. In my opinion, the Figueras's script clears some blind spots of the book

Filmed on location in Medellin, including the old living quarters of the henchmen of the Medellin drug cartel, this Mexican-American-Colombian production never looses pace in a frantic and crude vertigo of sex, drugs, tragedy, and violence.

Don't miss it!

This movie was released first in Colombia because it's based in an excellent Colombian book, the movie shows us a Medellin (Colombia) of the 80's, and although you see some holes that are fulfilled if you ever read the book, you'll also love it because it's so well done, that you'll never yawn even once; the performance of the actors is awesome (except the one of Unax Ugalde he has to make a paisa accent and he really sucks on it), but above all the cast, the best is Flora Martinez, she plays a sexy deadly woman, who kills for money and kisses them before shooting them while plays with the heart of two men, who happen to be best friends, anyway is a very good movie and the rest of Latin America and US will be able to enjoy it next year, I hope you watch and enjoy it as much as I did.

Ps: Paisa is like a southern accent around here, I don't know if you've ever heard an interview of Juanes, if you have that's a paisa accent!!!

Rosario is the personification of the girl from the low barrios of Medellín-Colombia (ej. Comuna nor-oriental). Rosario is the kind of girl who knows how to survive the world where she was born, places of violence and drugs and basically no love, until she's given the same poison she use to give. Flora Martinez characterizes Rosario in a wonderful way. Some things that don't go well with this film are the coincidence in musical theme with Maria full of grace and some repeated scenes in car over the same bridge. However, I recommend you read Jorge Franco's original book where this movie was adapted from (www.jorge-franco.com). This is the best Colombian movie since Maria full of grace.