Aatami Korpi is the most unlikely action hero to have graced our screens in recent years; an ageing gold prospector who proved to be a powerful one-man army against invading Nazis.
Played by Jorma Tommila in Sisu and its new sequel Road to Revenge, his very typically Finish demeanour – near-silent and ever so slightly socially awkward – contrasts with his go-for-broke bravery when the moment calls for it. Other action leads have a swagger about them regardless of whether or not they’re engaged in a fight, but you’d never know this former soldier was a walking weapon if you passed him by.
Writer/director Jalmari Helander’s previous film took inspiration from First Blood in how it stranded its lead in the wilderness, vastly outnumbered by an enemy that felt like the physical manifestation of his own wartime PTSD. Helander was initially planning to follow the Rambo path further with the sequel but jettisoned his original plans to fully lean into the sillier 1980s action sequel template.
He told Zavvi: “I had some ideas for a sequel, but I never thought I’d ever have the chance to make one at first. When I arrived at the idea of Aatami getting his family home back, I knew I finally had a story worth telling – the first Sisu is such an important film for me, and I would only want to make a sequel if I could truly believe that I could make it better than the first one.
“Early on, I was thinking that it would be nice to follow the template from the 1980s of having a different kind of vibe to the sequel, but I realised that it was the wrong thing to do. It was important that, if anything, I went deeper and more emotional with Aatami’s story alongside the action if I wanted to top the first; if I did something different, I’d worry that I’d ruin the legacy of the first one in some way.”
After fighting gold hunting Nazis last time around, this time we push forward a few years to 1946, with Aatami finally returning to the now-abandoned home where his family were brutally murdered many years earlier. He hopes to rebuild it in their memory, but there’s a problem: it now falls on the other side of the redrawn Soviet border, and the Red Army officer responsible for killing Aatami’s family (Stephen Lang) has heard about his return, arriving to swiftly finish the job.
After getting swiftly shut down when I asked whether this story was an attempt to channel Finnish anxieties at having Putin next door - “I don’t think about politics, I make movies to let off steam from all of that!” - Helander explained that the more emotionally resonant tale was a challenge to pull off.
“I always knew Aatami’s backstory, but it was difficult to find the best way to tell it; I know people are here for the action, but if you don’t explore this emotional side in the first act, it’s hard to get people to care about what happens to him or his house. I’ve seen so many action movies that don’t care about the audience having an emotional connection, which is stupid, but it’s always the hardest thing to balance with the action.
“As a sequel idea, it all started from the place of knowing that Aatami has lost everything and needed to build a new life, with this house representing the promise of starting over again after so much tragedy. The challenge is pulling that off well enough at the start so you have more room to play around and do whatever the f**k you want when the action does start around it!”
The first film culminated in Aatami climbing on board a plane as it was taking off, desperately attempting to make his way inside to kill the Nazi pilots. It was a gloriously OTT scene, and Road to Revenge doubles down on the vehicular mayhem, with extravagant chase sequences which recall the Mad Max franchise, especially when taking place against a desolate rural backdrop.
“I’ve heard that comparison a lot, it keeps coming up in interviews as the franchise I’m asked about, but it wasn’t an inspiration for me. I was honestly thinking more about Indiana Jones and James Bond, and the way chases are staged in those films – that was the closest thing to the style I was aiming for, especially as I think of Aatami as being like a Finnish Indiana Jones.
“It is very slow filmmaking though, nobody likes shooting underwater or on a fleet of moving vehicles. It’s time consuming and hard to reset, but we pulled off everything I was planning, as when I write I’m always thinking about the practicality of each scene; I can’t go too over the top, I’m the one who has to film it, after all!”
Looking forward, Aatami’s story may continue in a completely different medium, with video game auteur Hideo Kojima vocal about adapting the Sisu franchise.
“It will be very interesting to see what happens. I spoke to Kojima on the phone, and he stressed how interested he was, but he has too much on his plate to make a deal to make this a reality just yet – for now, I’m just happy that this is something that he really liked, and had that powerful a response to.”
As for Helander’s next move, a third Aatami adventure won’t be next on the cards, as he’s going from making a movie inspired by Rambo to directing a Rambo prequel, set to shoot early in the new year.
“It feels like a full circle moment for me as a filmmaker, for sure. It’s unbelievable to be in a position where I’m about to shoot my own Rambo film, I’m here in Bangkok doing pre-production, ready to shoot at the beginning of 2026.
“It’s great to be trusted to bring an action hero back to the screen. But would he beat Aatami in a fight? I’ll just say, Rambo should consider himself lucky that he wasn’t around at the same time as him...”
Sisu: Road to Revenge is released in UK cinemas on Friday, 21st November.
