Sisu 2 / Sisu : Road to Revenge

 

Jalmari Helander: Sisu 2 / Sisu : Road to Revenge (FI 2025). Jorma Tommila (Aatami Korpi), Stephen Lang (Yeagor Dragunov). 

Si2u [alternative spelling].

    FI © 2025 Cosmic Snowball Oy and Korpi GC Ltd. PC: Subzero Film Entertainment Oy, Cosmic Snowball Oy, Good Chaos, Korpi GC Ltd. P: Petri Jokiranta, Mike Goodridge. EX: Gregory Quanhon, Antonio Salas.

    D+SC: Jalmari Helander. DP: Mika Orasmaa – colour – 2.39:1 – release format: DCP. PD: Otso Linnalaakso. AD: Kaia Tungal. Set dec: Anna-Liisa Liiver. Cost: Pille Küngas. Makeup: Salla Yli-Luopa. Makeup and prosthetics supervisor: Gristina Pahmann. SFX supervisor: Konsta Mannerheimo. Lead pyrotechnician: Herbert Blank. VFX supervisor: Jussi Lehtiniemi. VFX producer:  Vuk Despotović. CG supervisor: Daniel Rodrigues das Neves. M: Juri Seppä, Tuomas Wäinölä. S: Tuomas Seppänen, Timo Anttila. ED: Juho Virolainen.

    CAST: Jorma Tommila (Aatami Korpi), Stephen Lang (Yeagor Dragunov), Richard Brake (KGB Officer), Tommi Korpela (Finnish Man), Kaspar Velberg (Pilot), Pääru Oja (Militsioner), Erki Laur  (Mercenary), Maksim Demidov (Mercenary), Mart Nurk (Mercenary), Riho Rosberg (Mercenary), Martin Kork (Mercenary), Sten Zupping (Train Guard), Veiko Porkanen (Train Guard), Elias Keränen (Finnish Border Guard), Robin Täpp (Finnish Border Guard).

    Loc: Estonia, Finland.

    Language: English.

    88 min

    Genre: action.

    Premiere: 22 Oct 2025 – distributor: SF Studios – Finnish subtitles: Marko Hartama.

    2026 Jussi Awards Nominee: Best Film, Best Director, Best Make-Up, Best Visual Effects.

    Vimeo link for Jussi Awards viewed at home in Paris, 24 Feb 2026

OFFICIAL: "Sisu 2 on täydellä rähinällä eteenpäin vyöryvä toimintaelokuva, joka on jatkoa aina kansainväliseksi hitiksi asti nousseelle ykkösosalle Sisu. Aatami Korpi, “mies, joka ei suostu kuolemaan” (Jorma Tommila) palaa kotikonnuilleen neuvostomiehityksen alaiseen Karjalaan, purkaa talonsa, lastaa sen kuormurin kyytiin ja päättää vakaasti panna pirttinsä taas pystyyn Suomen puolelle. Kun tieto Aatamin rajan ylityksestä leviää, palaa hänen perheensä surmannut partisaanien komentaja (Stephen Lang) hoitamaan jo legendan maineen saaneen suomalaisen sotilaan pois päiviltä."

IMDB: "A man returns to dismantle his family's house, where they were murdered in war, to rebuild it elsewhere. When the killer, a Red Army commander, tracks him down, a brutal cross-country pursuit begins."

"Returning to the house where his family was brutally murdered during the war, "the man who refuses to die" (Jorma Tommila) dismantles it, loads it on a truck, and is determined to rebuild it somewhere safe in their honor. When the Red Army commander who killed his family (Stephen Lang) comes back hellbent on finishing the job, a relentless, eye-popping cross-country chase ensues – a fight to the death."

"The Soviet Union, 1946. With his family buried behind the new border, Aatami Korpi longs for closure and a fresh start in the motherland. But some wounds never heal. As the Soviets receive notice that the Finnish commando who decimated an entire Wehrmacht platoon in Sisu (2022) and killed over 300 Red Army soldiers has entered the country, they send their best to handle the killing machine. Now, Officer Yeagor Dragunov, the murderer of villages, must stop the invader, settle an old score, and beat the legend out of Korpi. However, many have tried to eliminate Aatami; all have failed. Pain and change go hand in hand, and the frozen hell of Siberia awaits. Will the war ever end?" —Nick Riganas

AA: Jalmari Helander's Sisu 2 is the sequel to Sisu / Immortal (FI 2023), which starred Jorma Tommila as Aatami Korpi, a one-man wrecking crew against Nazis in Lapland.

In 1946 the war is over. Aatami launches a final battle to transport his house back, log by log, from the part of Karelia now ceded to Russia. He must also fight a personal enemy, an ex-Red Army commander, now apparently a rogue mercenary fighter, Yeagor Dragunov (Stephen Lang), who massacred Aatami's family during the war. Yeagor is let loose from his Siberian prison to finish Aatami off.

Again a tall tale worthy of Tex Avery, perhaps inspired by Tarantino in its way with alternative history, preposterous in outline and detail.

A chase film belonging to the cinema of attractions and spectacle, with satisfyingly regular "whammy" and "double whammy" scenes (explosions, pyrotechnics, jaw-dropping scenes on the ground, in the air and under water), following the Joel Silver manual of action cinema.

The special effects and the visual effects are extraordinary. The production values are high and well integrated.

Photographed by Mika Orasmaa, the movie is visually breathtaking. Helander displays an assured sense of rhythm between sequences of action and silence. In an age of overlong films, Helander keeps his movie admirably at a duration of 88 minutes.

A taut grip and a sharp edit are worthy of the best in action cinema.

The violence is gory, bloody, brutal and often sadistic. It is cartoon violence.

The subject is Finnish, but the idiom is American, and the dialogue is in American action/superhero speak. Like Nazis in the previous film, now Russians get to speak foreigner-villain American dialogue.

Is Aatami a hero or an anti-hero? Perhaps both, perhaps beyond both. During the first Sisu, I was reminded of my late friend Kai Vase's recollection from India where Rambo was seen as an incarnation of Shiva, the God of Destruction.

The mythical Shiva-like aspect is reinforced in Sisu 2. Aatami Korpi has superhero/supervillain powers. He goes through hell and high water. He survives torture. Like a fakir, he walks barefoot on broken glass.

Sisu 2 is a violent revenge fantasy. Revenge is the opposite of justice. Sisu 2 is a film about hate. Hate makes stupid. Instead, one should keep the head cool, the heart warm and the hand steady. Sisu 2 is a "one man against the enemy" saga, but success in combat is not a one man show. The word "sisu" is Finnish (it means "grit"), but I don't find the Sisu films very Finnish. 

The Sisu films are among the grand spectacles of destruction of our time.