The Finnish John Wick crossed with a Looney Tunes cartoon, SISU, is finally available from the comfort of your home. Based on the positive reception this film received from critics and audiences alike, you're in for quite a treat. At barely-over 90 minutes, this gory WW2 action film sees a soldier-turned-prospector named Aatami Korpi living alone after the death of his family.
However, his luck turns for the better after striking gold in the middle of Lapland circa 1944. But, as he attempts to cash in his haul, a Waffen-SS platoon gives chase, unleashing a determined rage within him that'll clash with the German war machine. Equally pulpy and entertaining, many have compared SISU with the works of Quentin Tarantino, as it emphasizes overt violence laid on top of precise storytelling.
But will SISU get a sequel? Positive review scores only mean so much, and while our protagonist's journey can very much continue, the original film works well enough as a must-see action movie. Still, there's enough here to entertain the idea. Most would likely love to see our mostly-silent prospector return to the screen once more, and given the few loose ends SISU left open, you could justify a sequel in more than a few ways.
Does SISU Deserve a Sequel?
Let's get this out of the way: SISU absolutely deserves a sequel. While history buffs may scoff at the premise, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of historical revisionism for the sake of entertainment. We would've never gotten Inglorious Basterds if the opposite was true.
Similarly, while SISU doesn't have the most amazing screenplay, that's not what the film is about. At its core, we have a movie with an incredibly simple premise: a man wants the gold that's rightfully his, and a group of evildoers wants to take that away from him—setting it in the middle of WW2, turning Aatami into a former-commando, and making the bad guys Nazis simply facilitate the hilariously-messy action to take place. Throw in an adorable dog that, miraculously, doesn't die at the end, and you have an action movie that isn't afraid to revel in its own excess.
Because of this, there's little that you'd really need in terms of justification for a sequel. The comparisons to John Wick are easy to make, but SISU and John Wick couldn't be any more different. The John Wick movies are firmly grounded in some form of reality. Wick himself is as human as the dozens of foes he takes down, and while we "know" deep down that he's going to win – since he's done it four times now – there's always a small moment where we question that assertion.
SISU, meanwhile, is more of a spectacle. We know what we're getting into. The fun comes less from the escalation of tension and more from being surprised at the kind of wild antics our protagonist gets into. We already know he's going to win, but we don't necessarily know "how." All we're trying to say is you wouldn't expect John Wick to board the exterior of a plane by striking it with a pickax during takeoff.
What Could Happen in a SISU Sequel?
Of course, these are movies, after all. If a SISU sequel were to happen, it'd need to actually tell a story. Luckily, we have some ideas of where this story can go based on statements provided by director Jalmari Helander himself, as well as what we have to work off of in SISU.
Minor spoilers for SISU are in-bound, but frankly, they're about what you'd expect: having successfully secured his gold and killed more Nazis than he could count, Aatami miraculously survives crashing a plane into a murky swamp before crawling out of it with his limbs and stoicism intact.
After making a heartfelt reunion with his dog, the duo makes their way back to a Helsinki, ravaged by the constant warfare. Entering a bank in his muddied uniform, he lays his pickaxe on the teller's counter before dumping his satchels of gold out next to it. From there, he utters his first and only words throughout the whole film: that'd he'd like bills in exchange for the gold—specifically, large bills so that they'd be easier to carry.
There are a few directions a continuation of SISU can go in. The obvious thing to do at a glance would be to go back in time. Aatami is a veteran, after all, and showcasing his time spent on the battlefield that molded him into an unstoppable force could make for a decent film. Conversely, part of what made his character work was the "not" knowing that his time in the war being off-screen makes him into a more legendarily-powerful protagonist.
Another option to further the John Wick comparisons would be to involve his poor little doggy in some kind of nefarious plot. We're not suggesting killing the thing, but he clearly shows a level of compassion and love for his dog that likely comes close to what he felt for his lost family. Separating a man and his gold is one thing, but getting between a man and his dog is something on a whole other level.
Either way, in an interview with GamesRadar+, Jalmari Helander declared he has an "idea" for a sequel. As he's still ironing out the broad strokes, details of what may happen are still purposefully vague. However, he alluded to the idea that our hero's newfound wealth "won't make him happy" and that somebody may need him to go on a rampage once more. WW2 technically wouldn't end until 1945, so there's a small chance we'll get to see him ravage some more Nazis in the meantime.