Rauta-aika (The Age of Iron) is a dramatic four-part miniseries completed in 1982 by Finnish broadcast network Yle TV2. The production attempts to adapt the national epic of Finland, the Kalevala, for the television audience by way of humanizing the mythological characters whose thoughts and actions drive the narrative. The protagonists of Rauta-aika, Väinö, Ilmari and Lemminki, have been inspired by the tales in the Kalevala and go in search of a woman, eventually finding themselves at war with the Nordic people, and in the end pay dearly for their pursuits.

1982 TV miniseries by Pauli Virtanen

1958 film by William Markus

film directed by Mikko Niskanen

1971 film by Mikko Niskanen

1983 film directed by Mikko Niskanen

Juuso, Late, and Pyry return from military service to their small village in the Finnish countryside. Finding work is difficult there, so Juuso decides to take a job on a Norwegian oil drilling platform. Late could start working on his family's chicken farm but wants to break free from his father who has a new wife. Looking for work in Gothenburg, Sweden, he only runs into more problems and is deported back to Finland. Pyry would like to take over his late father's farm but family quarrels over the estate make him quit his agricultural studies and, together with drifter Late, take a job in a steel mill in southern Finland.

Small-farmer Pasi shoots four policemen who have come to arrest him for raged drunkenness. The movie is a flashback examining the events that finally lead to the tragic shooting. As time goes by, Pasi sinks deeper into poverty, gets into trouble with police and tax officials, all while family arguments grow more and more serious. Based on a real story.