When director Jalmari Helander ended his eight-year hiatus by unleashing the balls-to-the-wall, action-packed, Nazi-killing movie “Sisu” on the world, he introduced a fantastic new action hero that at times felt like Finnish John Wick — a stoic guy with an adorable dog companion and a penchant for brutally killing his enemies.
Three years later, Helander is back for another round with the Finnish war hero Aatami (Jorma Tommila) in “Sisu: Road to Revenge.” This movie is cut from the same cloth as “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “John Wick: Chapter 4” in taking the original movie’s concept to new creative heights with a brand new tone, delivering action sequences that look like they were impossible to make without killing half the crew.
In the new film, Finland has lost a big chunk of its territory to the Soviet Union following WWII, including where Aatami’s home is. He dismantles his home and takes it with him, embarking on a journey to cross the border. But the Soviets are hellbent on killing “the man who refuses to die” and send a bunch of guys to make sure he stays dead this time. That plan begins with what Helander calls “motor mayhem,” a massive set piece involving a “Fury Road”-style chase with several motorcycles, a truck, and eventually even biplanes, and it was the hardest part of the movie to shoot, as he told /Film in an exclusive interview before the release of the film.
“It was important to me to have speed on this one, so I was just imagining all kinds of vehicles which we could use and trying to get in very difficult situations for Aatami,” Helander said. “It was really time-consuming and hard to shoot those sequences, especially motor mayhem with so many moving vehicles and all the cameras.”
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Dogs and bikes and trucks, oh my
A truck being chased by a plane in Sisu: Road to Revenge – Sony Pictures Releasing
The motor mayhem sequence is the highlight of the film, as it involves multiple moving parts (literally), big stunts, and one dog, all on the move. Unsurprisingly, this was the biggest challenge in making the movie — especially considering the Bedlington terrier that serves as Aatami’s faithful companion had to be accounted for. The dog was a big part of the first film, a scene-stealer and at times as big an action star as Aatami himself. In the sequel, the dog is present through the entire motor mayhem sequence, with Aatami having to defend both the materials that make up his family home and also the dog. Unsurprisingly, dealing with a dog wasn’t an easy aspect of filming the “Sisu” sequel (which I’d legitimately call one of the best action movies in recent times).
“It’s always hard — not as hard as in the first one because this time, the dog is so much in the car, so much easier to control because he basically can’t run away or anything like that,” Helander explained. “But it was time-consuming and I usually [told] the second unit, ‘Please try to have the dog do this and this,’ because I didn’t have the time or patience to go through with all that.”
The biggest magic trick “Sisu: Road to Revenge” achieves is that the entire movie essentially takes place in different vehicles, upping the ante and finding ways to keep the action fresh. Surprisingly, Helander confessed that even though they managed to pull off every crazy idea he had, there was one he didn’t dare put in the movie. “I had one scene which was actually too violent even for me that we needed to take that out.”
“Sisu: Road to Revenge” is in theaters now.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
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