Do dogs die in Sisu? HITC investigates Sisu in full with spoilers.
If a movie gets compared to John Wick then you know you’re going to be in very good hands. Good hands. Not necessarily deadly hands.
The Keanu Reeves revenge extravaganza has since been followed by three sequels and arguably revitalized audiences’ appetite for the genre, with efforts like Nobody catering to this hunger. Sisu is the latest film to achieve this.
Directed by Jalmari Helander, the historical action movie takes place in Finnish Lapland during World War II and focuses on a gold prospector, Aatami Korpi, who strives to recover his gold when it’s taken by a Nazi death squad.
Hellbent on taking them out and reclaiming his treasure, a violent bloodbath ensues, inevitably opening up the floor to a question that animal lovers won’t be able to stop themselves from asking: Does the dog die in Sisu?
SISU SPOILERS: WARNING!
Is the dog dead in Sisu?
No, Aatami’s dog ultimately survives the many ordeals of Sisu, but it’s definitely a close one.
Aatami, a lonely man in Lapland who lives with his dog is introduced at the start of the film. When he is forced to fight Nazis in an all-out battle, his dog joins him.
As the plot thickens, the Nazi soldiers use their own dogs to get Aatimi’s scent and they set off on a trail that leads to him. He’s clever enough to use gasoline to disguise his scent and throw the canines off.
Aatimi is also found and Aatimi lights himself on fire to keep the thugs away, before leaping into a nearby lake. Bruno the Nazi finds him, but it’s too late. He has lost his dog. He decides to fit a grenade to the dog’s collar and sends him to find Aatami. The pair reunite, but Aatami is able to save his friend’s life, although he himself is left damaged in the explosion.
Nevertheless, they both make it out alive—much to the glee of audiences.
‘Cutest dog I have ever seen in a movie’
Audiences have wasted no time in reacting to the Sisu dog on Twitter, and it’s clear that some are pretty smitten.
Here are some of the most recent tweets.
‘I didn’t have any fun with the horses’
The Sisu Director recently took part in an informative discussion about animals. You can also find out more about the topic by clicking here. I was interviewed by Pop-Culturalist about the difficulties of working on animals in film:
“I didn’t have any fun with the horses. One day I was so upset that a horse had escaped, I nearly cried. With our props, we found it ten kilometers out of the mountains. It was on the horse’s back. We scattered all around the wilderness looking for it and lost a day of shooting because of it.”
He also addressed what inspired him to make the film: “First Blood was one of the biggest influences and all those classic Western films. It was a combination of all of those things but with a modern twist.”