One-man army

SCHADENFREUDE is a borrowed word from German, and it refers to the feeling of pleasure or joy derived from watching someone else experience misfortune.

The Finnish film Sisu delivers schadenfreude for those who enjoy watching Nazis get obliterated.

In 1944 during the Lapland War – one of the conflicts within the greater World War II – the forces from Nazi Germany adopt a scorched earth strategy as they push through northern Finland towards the German-occupied Norway.

After unearthing a gold deposit somewhere in Lapland, gold prospector Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) finds himself crossing paths with one of these Nazi German forces; a platoon led by Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Bruno Helldorf (Aksel Hennie).

Korpi is then relentlessly pursued by Bruno and his men, as the latter seek to use his gold as a means to buy their way to safety due to the looming reality that Nazi Germany is losing the war.

Wartime violence

Sisu is not a conventional film about war, even if it is set during World War II. It is an action film, where its lead character carries out a one-man war.

It’s Die Hard in Finland during a World War. It’s Rambo: First Blood, but with Nazis.

Though the film takes a while before Korpi and Bruno meet each other, Sisu quickly picks up the pace once the bullets starts flying.

The inventive action sequences are designed around Korpi’s background, who is revealed to be a former Finnish special forces commando who became a folk legend due to him being a nightmare to the Soviet Union, who the Finnish were initially fighting against during the early stages of World War II.

Despite the 18+ age classification for the film in Malaysia, it’s surprising how Sisu’s action and hyper-violence was not censored, at all.

There is one sequence where Korpi throws an anti-personnel mine at a Nazi, and afterwards, some of the soldiers run through a minefield. None of shots of their bodies exploding like watermelons were cut.

The only obvious censor was a shot of Tommila’s bare buttocks.

That said, while the film boasts great action and cinematography for the most part, Sisu’s climactic slugfest is mind-boggling due to its lack of creativity and abysmal CGI.

Identity crisis

If there is one glaring flaw with Sisu, it has to be the language; 98% of the dialogue is in English.

For the sake of some authenticity, Bruno and the Nazi antagonists should have conversed in German, while the captive women used Finnish, instead of everyone speaking in English.

Even talking to each other, the Nazis were using English.

The only non-English dialogue used in Sisu are a few Finnish lines exchanged between the women and a Finnish soldier near the end of the film, while Korpi – who spends the entire film without speaking – says two lines in Finnish just before the film ends.

Despite its clunky handling of languages, Sisu certainly lives up to its name.

An untranslatable Finnish word, “sisu” roughly means courage and unimaginable determination in the face of death and overwhelming odds.

Even Tommila, a Finnish actor known for his theatre and drama background, amazingly captures what “sisu” is defined as. Every moment he is on screen as Korpi is a delight; he exemplifies a type of brooding physicality that is more common with action stars than someone in his traditional acting background.

All in all, director Jalmari Helander has perfectly captured the definition of “sisu” in the year’s most unique action film.

Sisu is in cinemas now.