For Finnish people, the concept of sisu cannot be directly interpreted. Roughly translated, it means strength, perseverance, and a firm determination to keep going in the face of adversity. It is best summarised as a collective inner strength called upon during challenging times.

The term helps explain Finland’s dominance in sports based on physical endurance. The country has won the title of World’s Strongest Man three times. Meanwhile, the current winner of the Wife Carrying World Championships, held annually in the quiet village of Sonkajärvi, is from Finland.

For over 100 years, this concept of extreme resilience has played an important role in Finnish history. The modern equivalent of this is akin to the ‘f- around and find out’ meme. The Soviet Union learned this when it decided to invade Finland in the Winter War of 1939–40. Soviet troops suffered 150,000 casualties as temperatures plummeted to minus 40 degrees Celsius; many feared they would be picked off by the deadly aim of legendary Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä. Häyhä, also known as ‘White Death’, had more than 500 confirmed kills. For many Finns, Häyhä is the ultimate symbol of sisu.

It is perhaps fitting, then, that this somewhat mythical and abstract quality has permeated modern culture. It is personified in Aatami Korpi, the protagonist of Jalmari Helander’s raucous new film, Sisu.

When it comes to film-making, sometimes movies based on a simple premise are the most enjoyable. A fact that seems to have escaped Hollywood. The plot is simple. A German soldier stole a prospector’s stash, and now he wants it back.

Sisu is one of those stunningly simple, flashy, action-packed movies that were once staples of the cinema world. It’s rare to find a movie like this these days, when the preponderance of Marvel and epic blockbuster movies treat historical revisionism as fact. Sisu reminds me of 1980s macho and anarchic action movies such as Rambo, Commando, and Die Hard. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this movie ever since the trailer was released last year. My interest was piqued when suddenly ‘from the studio behind John Wick’ appeared in the middle of the trailer. In fact, I can best describe Sisu as ‘John Wick meets Rambo’ set during the second world war.

The film begins in late 1944. The action takes place during the Lapland War, when German forces are destroying northern Finland. With total victory in the Scandinavian nation no longer within reach, the Axis powers retreated, adopting a scorched-earth policy of destroying everything in their path to halt the Soviet advance.

Here we meet Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila). Unaware of the hell that surrounds him, Korpi spends his time digging for gold in the remote wilderness of Finland. Persistence pays off when he unearths a sizeable deposit. So he gets on his horse and, with his dog in tow, makes his way to the nearest bank to cash in. In doing so, he walks right into the path of an oncoming Wehrmacht platoon under the command of SS Obersurmführer Bruno Heldorf, played by the very blonde Aksel Hennie. Heldorf ignores him, and Aatami continues on his way. However, he soon encounters a second, smaller group of German soldiers, some of whom notice the gold and attempt to execute him along with the dog. They’re about to realise they’ve messed with the wrong man.

Korpi turns out to be an ex-Finnish commando who lost his family in the war and has turned to a life of vengeance. Korpi, nicknamed Koschei ‘The Immortal’, is now a very angry, bearded killing machine.

What follows is a brutal 90-minute, high-octane cat-and-mouse game in which the Germans do everything in their power to kill him. He is shot, blown up, drowned, hanged, and even set on fire, but somehow manages to survive. Korpi simply refuses to give up. As the German death toll rises, so do the inventive methods used to kill them. Knives, pickaxes, landmines, and anything else are used in bloodthirsty ways. Limbs fly in all directions!

Dialogue is kept to a bare minimum. The main character hardly speaks. Instead, you get panoramas of the barren, empty landscapes left by the war. Occasionally, you encounter bombed-out buildings, burned-out vehicles, and charred corpses lining bullet-torn streets. It opens a small, broken window into the chaos and destruction taking place across Europe as the war comes to an end.

Just a warning. Don’t expect a serious war movie. This is not Paths of Glory. There is no strong message about the futility of war. Korpi is neither noble nor virtuous. He is just a man who wants his stuff back. And he doesn’t care what he has to do to get it.

But you know what? Sometimes things don’t have to be deep and meaningful. Sisu is highly stylised, but watching a pensioner tear German soldiers to pieces is incredibly fun. It won’t change your life, but it will make you laugh and remind you how great action movies can be. Not bad considering this was done on a budget of 6 million euros. Hollywood, take note.

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