Rated R. In Norwegian and German with subtitles. At the AMC Boston Common and suburban theaters.

A Tarantino-esque World War II entry set in Finnish Lapland near the end of the war, Jalmari Helander’s exciting “Sisu” tells the story of soldier and gold miner Aatami Korpi (Helander regular Jorma Tommila, “Rare Exports”), a man whose name strikes fear on the heart of a Nazi general. The film’s plot is disarmingly simple. Korpi, who has apparently retired as a soldier, strikes it rich after digging beside a river in the vast tundra. He loads his horse and dog up for travel, and they encounter a small convoy of Nazi troops, two trucks, a motorcycle and a tank.

The commander of all of the convoy is a sadistic SS officer named Bruno Helldorf (Aksel Hennie, “Headhunters”). His right hand man is a bloodthirsty sniper aptly named Wolf (Jack Doolan, “The Boys”). The Nazis have several kidnapped and obviously sexually attacked Finnish women in one of the trucks. At first, the Nazis allow Korpi to pass, certain that he will encounter more of their kind, returning from destroying every Finnish village they come across in their “scorched earth” retreat, and be killed. But they hear more gunfire than they expect and return to see what happened. What they find is the first move in this game of cat-and-mouse between Helldorf and his soldiers and Korpi, who is reputed to possess the untranslatable quality know as “sisu” (some call it “white-knuckle courage”). Korpi is also reputed to be immortal.

Helander, whose Samuel L. Jackson-starring “Big Game” (2014), his underrated follow up to “Rare Exports,” did not secure him a big Hollywood contract, is going to get one now. “Sisu” is a ton of fun. Featuring Sergio Leone-level sound and visuals, “Sisu” pounds you with every bullet, grenade and mine. The faces are Fellini-esque with a Finnish-Norse twist. The wrinkled, sunburned and bearded Tommila, who once again appears with his real-life son Onna Tommila as Helldorf’s aid Schutze, is the unlikely hero of a big action film. He’s no Chris Hemsworth, that’s for sure. But he has some mysterious Rambo-like quality that makes you believe he can take on a dozen, more heavily-armed Nazis. When it is first discovered by Korpi, the gold lights up the actor’s face like some magical, heavenly substance. This is not “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” as much as it is a subdivision of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (more Nazis, right?). Korpi keeps coming up against ridiculous odds against him, including a minefield that he ingeniously turns against his Nazi enemies. In many ways, Korpi is a variation on a theme of Indiana Jones without the charm or the clever banter. Most of all, Korpi possesses Indy’s almost superhuman ability not to get killed, which is why the “Indiana Jones” movies were forerunners – good or bad – of superhero films.

“Susi” is subdivided into chapters with names like “The Gold” and “The Nazis” and moves at breakneck speed. At first you are struck by the orange and blue colors in the springtime Lapland landscape. It’s a beautiful, indifferent backdrop for scenes in which Helldorf orders his men to step into the smoke-covered minefield to find Korpi. Bodies blow up. Mines are hurled like frisbees. Helldorf sends two women out to act as human minesweepers. If you didn’t know or remember that Finland fought against both the Russians and the Germans in World War II, you will be reminded. Helander mixes genuine visions from the war such as bodies hanging from streetlamps with elements and techniques of pop film-making. At times, you don’t so much “buy” what you are seeing as just enjoy it. The score features throat-singing. As one of the prisoners-turned-fighters (Mimosa Willamo) explains, Korpi isn’t “the strongest.” He just “keeps coming back” and “refuses to die.” That’s “Sisu.”

(“Sisu” contains profanity, gore and extreme violence)