My Son, the Hero

Despite the rivalry among them, the García cousins—Luis Antonio, José Luis, and Luis Manuel—live in harmony, punctuated by the cane-smacks of their grandmother, Doña Luisa. But one day Lupita appears: a distant cousin who all three young men fall in love with. The situation gets even more complicated when the López brothers, responsible for the deaths of the García parents, burst onto the scene.

A defeated Colonel Zeta, from Pancho Villa’s forces, reaches a town controlled by Carranza’s men. There, he imprisons and orders the execution of Colonel Zúñiga, his former ally, and several of his men—including the lover of La Cucaracha, a female soldier who leads a group of armed women. The plot is further complicated by the arrival of Isabel, a bourgeois woman who has been forced to join the revolutionary struggle.

Pepe el Toro is a humble carpenter who lives in a working-class Mexico City neighborhood marked by friendship and camaraderie. He supports his daughter, Chachita, and his paralyzed mother; his girlfriend is Celia, la Chorreada. The drama begins when Pepe is unjustly accused of murdering a money-lender, then imprisoned; at the same time, Chachita unwittingly finds out the true story of her late mother.