| Director | Jalmari Helander |
|---|---|
| Genre | action film, war film |
| Runtime | 91 min |
| Country | Finland, United States |
| Budget | $6.2 million |
| Box office | $14.3 million |
In late 1944, during the Lapland War, Aatami Korpi searches for gold with his horse and dog in the wilderness of Lapland in the gold rush. He uncovers a rich deposit, collects a large quantity of gold nuggets, and travels towards Rovaniemi. Along the way, Aatami encounters a large Waffen-SS platoon led by Obersturmführer Bruno Helldorf. Helldorf is destroying villages during their retreat towards Norway and has taken several Finnish women captive. Helldorf takes little interest in Aatami, letting him pass. Aatami is soon accosted by a second unit of SS soldiers who discover his saddlebags full of gold. They jeeringly decide to rob and kill him, but he swiftly kills them all. Alerted by the gunfire, Helldorf investigates and discovers the massacre and one of Aatami's gold nuggets.
Helldorf and his tank pursue Aatami to the edge of a minefield, where Aatami's horse is killed by a landmine. Gathering up his gold while Helldorf and his men watch, Aatami intentionally detonates another mine to make his escape. Several soldiers are sent after him, but are quickly blown up by mines. Helldorf orders two of the captive women ahead to ensure a clear path. After retrieving Aatami's dog tag, Helldorf's second-in-command Wolf learns over the radio of Aatami's past. After losing his family while fighting as a Finnish Army commando during the Winter War, the vengeful Aatami became the legendary "one-man death squad" whom Joseph Stalin's Red Army nicknamed Koshchei ("the Immortal"). Helldorf defies his orders to continue retreating in order to hunt down Aatami and steal the gold, explaining to Wolf that Nazi Germany has already lost the war and they will need the gold to bribe their way out of being hanged.
The German soldiers dispatch dogs to follow Aatami's trail. Aatami sends his own dog away to safety before using petrol from one of the German trucks to cover his scent. However, the soldiers soon discover him and Aatami dives into a nearby lake. Helldorf sends three soldiers onto the lake in a boat, but Aatami kills two of them by slitting their throats underwater and breathes in the escaping air from their necks. The remaining German soldier attempts to flee, but is killed by Wolf for deserting. After reaching the riverbank, Aatami uses the soldier's body to shield himself from the Germans' gunfire and escapes. On the other side of the river, Aatami's dog is discovered by Helldorf.
Aatami discovers that Rovaniemi has been left in burning ruins and takes shelter in the remains of a petrol station. Helldorf sends Aatami's dog to find him, but with a lit Stielhandgranate attached to his collar. Aatami throws the grenade off to the side, saving his dog, but is knocked down and stunned when it explodes. Helldorf, Wolf, and tank driver Schütze hang Aatami, taking the gold and leaving him for dead, but Aatami impales one of his wounds onto protruding rebar, giving him the slack he needs to save his life, though he is still left hanging. Some time later, a German plane flies over the area in search of fuel, and the vibration from its flyover causes the structure Aatami is hanging from to collapse. The plane lands and the two pilots begin to search for fuel, but are ambushed by Aatami, who kills one of them, then forces the surviving pilot to fly him ahead of Helldorf's platoon.
Helldorf and the German convoy soon discover the abandoned plane in their path, and Wolf realizes that the pilot inside has been strangled to death using the same rope used to kill Aatami. Spooked, Helldorf quickly orders the convoy to keep going. As the Germans continue, Aatami climbs onto the truck holding the female captives, kills their guards, and arms the women. Aino, the de-facto leader of the women, commandeers one of the trucks, allowing Aatami to leap onto Helldorf's tank while the women gun down the rest of the soldiers. Aatami pulls Wolf out of the tank before leaving him at the mercy of the women. Helldorf reaches a commandeered Soviet plane and kills Schütze before taking off with the pilot. Aatami fires at the plane, mortally wounding the pilot, and uses his pickaxe to get onboard in midair. Helldorf and Aatami engage in hand-to-hand combat. After Helldorf gets the upper hand, Aatami swiftly hooks a static line to a bomb before releasing it, dropping Helldorf to his death. After finding that the pilot is dead, Aatami straps himself in as the plane crashes into a swamp.
Led by Aino, the freed women drive the commandeered German tank, with a beaten Wolf strapped to the turret, to an incredulous Finnish Army unit. Aatami crawls out of the swamp and reunites with his dog, before making his way to war-ravaged Helsinki. He enters a bank and empties his satchels of gold onto a teller's counter, then speaks for the first time with a request to exchange it for paper currency: "Bills. Big ones, please. Won't be so damn heavy to carry."