The Mask of Zorro/Best scene/Anthony Hopkins/Stuart Wilson/Julieta Rosen

In 1821, Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins), a Spanish-born California nobleman, fights against soldiers in the Mexican War of Independence as Zorro, a mysterious masked swordsman who defends the Mexican peasants and commoners of Las Californias. Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson), the corrupt governor of the region, learns of De La Vega’s alter ego and attempts to arrest him. De la Vega’s wife Esperanza (Julieta Rosen), who Montero was in love with, is killed during the ensuing scuffle. Montero imprisons de La Vega and takes his infant daughter, Elena, as his own before returning to Spain. Twenty years later, Montero returns to California as a civilian, alongside Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who has grown into a beautiful woman and resembles her late mother. Montero’s reappearance motivates de La Vega to escape from prison. He encounters a thief, Alejandro Murietta (Antonio Banderas) who, as a child, saved Zorro’s life during his last fight. De la Vega decides that fate has brought