Sisu: Road to Revenge Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Sisu: Road to Revenge Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 24, 2026

Sisu is a word that cannot be translated. It means a white knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination.

Sisu manifests itself when all hope is lost.

In the "everything old is new again" department, news feeds are currently filled (as this review is being written) with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy more or less agreeing to cede captured territory to Russia in an effort to finally quell the long running conflict between those two nations. Several decades earlier when Russia was the Soviet Union (or part of it, anyway), Finland was forced to do much the same thing, first during World War II, and then, considering that the USSR was one of the putative victors of that conflict, even after the battle had ended. If Scandinavia as a whole may tend to get short shrift in terms of its reactions to Germany and the Nazis during World War II courtesy of folks like Quisling, the (thus far) two Sisu films make it abundantly clear that there were at least some resistance fighters in Finland if nowhere else (of course it goes without saying that both Norway and Sweden had their own rebels fighting the Germans). Sisu: Road to Revenge moves the narrative of the first film forward to an immediate post-war environment, where the "enemy" has morphed from Germany into Russia, but the underlying ambience very much mirrors the first film and once again makes a visceral point that resistance is most definitely not futile.

I'm frankly a little doubtful about whether there was such an imposing gate at the border crossing into "newly claimed" USSR territory as the one depicted near the opening of the film, a facade which is probably intentionally designed to make it look like "unkillable" and still wordless Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) is driving straight into a concentration camp. Aatami is returning to what was formerly part of Finland to reclaim the family home he shared with his murdered wife and children, and that reclamation means disassembling the structure log by log, numbering them, and stacking them all in the back of a huge flatbed truck he's driving. In the meantime, Yeagor Draganov (Stephen Lang), the former Soviet Red Army officer supposedly responsible for the deaths of Aatami's family, is released from some kind of Siberian gulag with instructions to "clean up the mess" Aatami's continued existence offers.

While ultimately rather compelling in terms of how this then sets up a more "personal" conflict than in the first film, it's also probably too calculated and preposterous for its own good, raising at least as many questions as it seems to want to answer. The whole Draganov character is superbly (and viciously) portrayed by Lang, who's frankly incredibly frightening in the role, but the writing, especially contextually around Draganov's undeveloped backstory and then weird ability to almost magically summon hordes of fighters to help take out Aatami is probably the weakest link of this enterprise.

All of that said, this film is a veritable onslaught of fantastic set pieces as Aatami tries to get his house in pieces to someplace safe where he can build anew. The obstacles he faces become increasingly hyperbolic, but writer and director Jalmari Helander invests the proceedings with a breathless pace that features liberal doses of what are almost live action versions of Tex Avery cartoons, albeit here with the carnage not resulting in the immediate resurrection of decimated characters. Just compare, for example, one great (if bloody) vignette with Draganov in a Jeep surrounded by a bunch of steel helmeted motorcycle riders chasing after Aatami, where Aatami manages to get one of the riders off his cycle careening headlong into the highway. Several motorcycles then whiz past the poor guy, who just barely manages not to get hit. Now imagine just for a moment that that character was the Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon and you can pretty much imagine what happens next. And in fact, several of the showdowns here offer Draganov as the hapless Coyote and Aatami as the resourceful Roadrunner (albeit more spectacularly bloody than the Roadrunner ever was), with Draganov's ultimate demise a near perfect example with what could almost be an Acme rocket gone awry.

The film builds to a rather sweet if unnecessarily momentarily fraught conclusion as of course Aatami manages to defeat all the videogame-esque levels (including the Final Boss, not to state the obvious), with some real emotion being wrested out of the rebuilding of his home. There's an included alternate ending that refers more to the booty aspect of the first film.

Sisu: Road to Revenge Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sisu: Road to Revenge is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Technical information is frustratingly sparse as of the writing of this review, but cinematographer Mika Orasmaa, returning from the first film, used a Sony Venice on that production, and my hunch is that may have been used here as well. There is some online reportage that the DI was 4K. This is a really impressive 1080 presentation, though I will recommend fans of the film with 4K equipment to opt for that version, as both detail levels and palette nuance are improved in 4K and HDR. Detail levels are continually impressive throughout this presentation, with the possible exception of a few passing CGI effects (as in the very first shot of Aatami's truck crossing a frozen tundra), though that said the CGI probably fares better at this resolution than in Sony's standalone 4K release. Fine detail on faces and all of the practical sets and costumes is typically fantastic, though some of the bodily immolation is so graphic that squeamish types should probably steel themselves. The palette has bursts of color (like all the blood), but is rather bleak on the whole, reflecting the sad state of affairs Aatami finds himself in. The digital grain may frankly not be to everyone's liking, and it can be especially gritty looking against skies.

Sisu: Road to Revenge Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sisu: Road to Revenge has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track on this 1080 disc, and the 4K disc's Atmos offering should be another big selling point for those with the appropriate equipment. Surround activity is quite impressive here, to be sure, but it lacks both the height and breadth of the Atmos track on the 4K disc (and I'm one who frankly doesn't always hear huge differences between "standard" surround tracks and Atmos versions). Ambient environmental sounds make up a huge swath of this film, and they regularly dot the side and rear channels quite convincingly. Both violent weather, as in the storm that introduces Draganov in Siberia, or more peaceful moments, like some of the brief sylvan interludes with Aatami disassembling his cabin, all feature consistent immersion. Of course some of the big set pieces are a veritable whirlwind of activity, and the motorcycle chase in particular has some very fun panning effects, and some frankly hilarious sound effects as various carnage ensues. Aatami's laconic (to say the least, and, yes, even that is a pun) nature means there's not a lot of dialogue when he's around (from him, anyway), but what is here is delivered cleanly and clearly. Optional subtitles in several languages are available.

Sisu: Road to Revenge Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Upping the Ante (HD; 3:03) basically plays like a trailer, with highlights from the film and some brief interstitial interviews.


• Deleted Scene - Alternate Ending (HD; 00:41)

This is the first Sony disc I've reviewed in a while, so not sure if this is standard operating procedure for them, but this disc is authored to move on automatically to these supplements after the feature plays. There are also previews that follow the Deleted Scene, and those also play at disc boot up.

Sisu: Road to Revenge Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The unbelievable carnage on display throughout this tale keeps things viscerally disturbing, even as event after event here can be like watching a live action cartoon. Technical merits are first rate and the brief supplements decent. SteelBook packaging should be an extra enticement for some. Recommended.