November, 1939. A conscription officer arrives in a farming village. The Soviet Union has invaded. Finland is at war. Setting off into the depths of winter to face the Red Army, the group of childhood friends recruited from Rautjarvi cannot be confident that they will ever return. But their unit has a secret weapon: the soldier Simo Hayha, whose lethal skill as a sniper in the snowbound forests of the front line will earn him the nickname 'The White Death'.