If you’re an action junkie, chances are few films in recent years have caught your attention like Sisu. The stripped-down Finnish revenge saga saw Jorma Tommila’s lonely prospector Aatami go absolutely berserker when he was set upon by a troop of Nazis – who soon discovered that their elderly foe was not to be messed with. The results were spectacularly gory, hilariously outlandish, and full of creativity. Now, with sequel Sisu: Road To Revenge, Aatami is back – this time battling the Red Army after the end of World War II, with an even more personal mission.
While the first Sisu saw Aatami holding tightly to the gold nuggets he’d panned, here he has a much larger item to protect. “He’s trying to transport his own home, which is really emotional cargo — and much more difficult to move around than a bag of gold, so the action is bigger and the stakes higher,” returning writer-director Jalmari Helander tells Empire.
With a new batch of Soviet baddies to dispatch – led by Stephen Lang’s dastardly Igor Draganov – Aatami is set to unleash a cavalcade more off-the-wall kills. Helander promises he hasn’t run out of outlandish executions. “I changed the Nazis to different bad guys!” he grins. “So, I somehow found a lot of cool ways again. I don’t know why my brain is good at thinking of something like that, but that’s my superpower.” Long may that power continue.
Read Empire’s full Sisu: Road To Revenge story in the Wicked: For Good issue – on sale Thursday 25 September. Pre-order a copy online here. Sisu: Road To Revenge comes to UK cinemas from 21 November.