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.

This movie has an interesting, albeit somewhat formulaic, film-noir story as its foundation.

However, the movie ended up being too tedious to watch because of the excessively long segments devoted to hammering the same message time and again.

For instance, the wake and burial of one of the characters includes some creative twists---but ends up taking ~40 minutes of the film, so long before it moves on people in the audience start checking their watches.

This could have been of "City of god" caliber, but will never be. I'm not sure why it reached such a cult status in Colombia.

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!

Could have been better.

It was like watching a glorified soap opera with the added bonus of nudity.

I felt somethings were overdone because of the lack of an intriguing plot, for example the back and forth in time felt more as a Deus ex machina to pull things along, I must say there were a couple scenes that will stick with me so it's not THAT bad, I just don't see what the hype is about except for the hot woman with fake tits which don't look half bad the way she carries them, there is an interesting play of characters but I feel maybe too flat, I'm not sure what it is that is missing.

Just saw this movie in Buga, Colombia. Not being a native speaker it was a bit hard for me to understand all the dialogues - especially the street slang of the hired killers. In my opinion Unax Ugalde did a very good acting job, but then again I didn't notice his poor paisa accent. The first part really was excellent. I loved the way the movie jumped back and forward in time, which added greatly to the suspension. It's a pity that the movie seemed to loose some of its direction in the second half. Still a memorable picture, and hopefully it'll get the international distribution it deserves. Does anybody know if there's a release planned in Europe or elsewhere?