Rosario Tijeras

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!

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!!!

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.

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.