Sisu: Road to Revenge 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Sisu: Road to Revenge 4K 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 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: While this is a standalone 4K release without a 1080 disc, I am offering screenshots from Sony's standalone 1080 release of Sisu: Road to Revenge as I think it actually provides a better representation of the look of the palette in particular, rather than offering screenshots from the 4K disc which are by necessity downscaled to 1080 and in SDR. Because this release does not include a 1080 disc, the 2K video score above has been intentionally left blank.

Sisu: Road to Revenge is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment with an HEVC / H.265 encoded 2160p 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 4K presentation, though maybe in some unexpected ways. While detail levels see some noticeable improvements from already excellent 1080 levels, the tweaking of the palette courtesy of the HDR / Dolby Vision grades may be the most immediately observable phenomenon. And here's where it got kind of interesting for me personally: while there are certainly upticks in warmth and "traditional" suffusion in some of the earlier daylight scenes with Aatami working on deconstructing his cabin, even throughout this vignette and notably throughout the entire presentation the HDR grades actually tend to emphasize the bleakness of the surroundings a lot of the time. Skies are more oppressively gray and even flesh tones at times can be more neutral looking, as if all human color had been drained from things. The digital grain may frankly not be to everyone's liking, and it can be especially gritty looking against skies.

Sisu: Road to Revenge 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sisu: Road to Revenge gets a great sounding Dolby Atmos track on this 4K disc (Sony's 1080 disc offers a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track as its lossless surround option). Height is immediately audible in the sweeping ambient storm effects that open the film and over and over again environmental effects provide really convincing immersion, both vertically and laterally. The first shot of Siberia where Draganov is introduced is another good example of the Atmos track providing more convincing surround activity, with even more storm activity. 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 4K 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 4K edition is packaged in a SteelBook with an arresting image on the front panel of Aatami atop a pile of war detritus. The back panel features Aatami and Draganov facing off with a battle scene (and Aatami's sweet dog) underneath. The inner panels feature Aatami in front of an array of weapons. A J card folds around the top.

A digital copy is also included.

Sisu: Road to Revenge 4K 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.