For as long as corridos have been around (since the Mexican Revolution to be exact), there have been many composed about revolutionary figures, well-doin’ bandits and many conflicts around Mexico & bordering towns near the USA. Later into the 20th century, corridos had become songs about drug traffickers, brutal criminal elements and stories of tragedies & revenge. Mexican music composer Julian Garza was one of the pioneers of corrido composition and has a lengthy discography to prove this & one of his most well-known corridos isn’t about a brute man nor is the woman in said song just a victim or a conflicting individual—the woman in this song takes matters into her own hands to fulfill her revenge against a powerful man who killed her father. This corrido is called “La Venganza De Maria” ("The Revenge of Maria") and it truly lives up to its name.
Juan Rentería (Andres Garcia) is a charismatic businessman whose line of work is in meat packing in Monterrey, NL. Juan’s most reliable truck driver has a pretty daughter named Maria (Alicia Encinas) whom Juan longs to have, but she is taken by a rural policeman named Jorge whom she plans to marry. Most don’t know, but Juan Renteria is running a secret drug trafficking ring in his meat-packing business that is making him a lot of money & making him powerful—thus boosting his ego even more so.
Maria’s fiancée Jorge suspects Juan is the drug trafficker that him & his partner Jaime (Maria’s brother) are continuously chasing after on the outskirts of Monterrey and just when Jaime is to reveal of Juan’s criminal activities—Juan kills both Jaime & Juan brutally with an electric meat cutter. Maria’s father then becomes suspicious of Juan and ends up getting killed as well. When Maria finds out that it was Juan who killed the 3 most important men in her life, she decides to kill him at a dance that they are both to attend.
La Venganza De María is a perfect example of a popular corrido turned into a film that not only brings the song to life, but also adds more of a context to it. The corrido never mentions who exactly Juan Rentería was other than a powerful man, but in the film adaption Juan is a businessman/drug trafficker with no mercy. And then not only is Maria avenging her father’s murder, but also avenging the murders of her fiancée & brother—2 new characters never heard of in the corrido. Then of course familiar faces are given to both Juan Rentería & Maria whom are played by the wonderfully-talented Andres Garcia and stunning blonde-bombshell Alicia Encinas. Now whenever you listen to the original corrido, you’ll have faces to put on these characters that are being sung about.
Previously available on various DVD releases & VHS, the availability of La Venganza De María is rather scarce these days since the DVD's & VHS' are no longer in print and have often fetched up online for high prices. It also rarely airs on TV despite the film being familiar & favored by many since its release.
So whatever opportunity is given to watch La Venganza De María, you take it because this is a film worthy of watching & will for sure be enjoyed heavily because it has all the action & suspense you’d expect and features an all-start cast that’ll glow your eyes up. This popular corrido was truly brought to life here!
“I want to attend that dance”, said the beautiful Maria.
Wait for me if you want..
With bad intention,
Juan Rentería approached.
That Juan killed Don Sotero, whom was Maria's father.
He came to the pasture to get what he wanted.
“Let's dance, Maria.” Juan the coward asks her.
