The Desperado cards and notes were written by Tun Kai Poh, and inspired by Robert Roderiguez's Desperado. This movie is a must for Shadowfist fans; Roderiguez is one of the new breed of directors heavily influenced by Hong Kong cinema, but has a particular flavor all his own.
Event, Limited
Redirect an attack on one of your characters to any other one of
your characters at that location.
Cost: 2dd
"You idiots! You went after the wrong man!"
Minstrel-Turned-Gunman
Character, Unique, Guts, Fighting 7
You may play Weapons states on El Mariachi at any time, even during
an opponent's turn.
Cost: 5ddd
Resources: d
"It's easier to pull a trigger than to play a guitar..."
Gun-crazed Mariachis
Character, Unique, Fighting 4
You may turn Campa and Quino to smoke any character they intercept.
Smoke Campa and Quino immediately after this.
Cost: 3d
Resources: d
"Campa, is Quino there? How fast can the two of you get to Santa
Cecilia? And Campa - bring your guitars."
Assassin in Black
Character, Unique, Assassinate, Fighting 4
Cost 5
Resources: None
"They say that he was the first to own the legendary Guitar Case
Full of Guns..."
State, Unique, Weapon
Play on any character. That character gains Ambush, and if the character
is a Mariachi or Azul, he gains 2 Fighting as well.
Cost: 3d
"Just in case..."
Hood Lookout
Character, Fighting 1
Cost: 1
Resources: None
Short Bartender may not turn to attack. All Hoods at Short Bartender's
location may intercept any character with Stealth.
"Something to drink? Something in the guitar case?"
State
Play on any Bartender. That Bartender may not be smoked in combat.
Cost: 1d
"So, the bartender lived! Hahahahaha! The Bartender never gets killed!"
Event
Exchange all Weapons on one character with all Weapons on any other
character at its location. Both characters must have the same
controller. Only one character has to have Weapons.
Cost: 2d
"I coulda sworn I had a guitar in here..."
Robert Rodriguez hit the big time with his $7000 budget Mexican action movie, El Mariachi, which was originally filmed as a direct-to-video film back in 1993, and the big shots in Hollywood and the Cannes Film Festival sat up and took notice, mainly because he wrote, directed and filmed the movie all by himself, in just two weeks. We're talking about "the man least likely to make Waterworld II," here.
Quentin Tarantino befriended Rodriguez and introduced him to some of his favorite Hong Kong gangster movies, and Rodriguez was divinely inspired, leading to some John Woo homage sequences in the El Mariachi sequel Desperado, especially in the spectacular bar fight. Rumor has it that Desperado was budgetted at $7 million, but the hyperkinetic Rodriguez brought the film in almost $3 million _under_ budget. As most people know, Tarantino, Steve Buscemi and Cheech Marin had parts in the rather successful 1995 action film, starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek and Joachim Almeira (sp?).
After doing a sequence in the ill-fated anthology Four Rooms, Rodriguez teamed up with Tarantino to film From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), which seems to have left many action/horror fans satisfied, but at the cost of alienating many film critics with its B-movie flavor. Many of the actors from Desperado, including Salma Hayek and Cheech Marin, got cameos as the bloodsucking monsters in the film, which starred George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis.
El Mariachi is available in video stores, with English subtitles (it's in Spanish). It stars Carlos Gallardo (Rodriguez's good friend and co- producer) and Peter Marquant. Most of the actors in El Mariachi had cameo appearances in Desperado, although I personally wish that Carlos Gallardo had reprised his role as the Mariachi, rather than let Antonio Banderas take over the part. But a "big-name" star sells tickets...>sigh< Check it out. Less action than Desperado, but funnier and more charming than any of Rodriguez's later films.
Last modified: March 1, 1996;