The Great Flood ending explained: Kim Da-mi shines in AI twist that left fans questioning their existence

If you thought The Great Flood was just another disaster movie with water, chaos, and heroic rooftop rescues, think again. Netflix’s December 19, 2025 release starring Kim Da-mi and Park Hae-soo dives headfirst into AI, maternal love, and a simulation twist that has Reddit buzzing—and crying—simultaneously.

The catastrophic Seoul flood is totally virtual. Every harrowing moment An-na and her son Ja-in endured was part of a simulation designed to test the Emotion Engine—a tech that asks the question: can synthetic humans actually feel? Redditors were shook. One top comment read:
"I just cried for a simulation. I’m questioning my own existence now."

Turns out, both An-na and Ja-in are synthetic beings, recreated after the real An-na perished in an actual flood. The countless iterations of the flood scenario weren’t punishment—they were lessons in maternal instinct, sacrifice, and genuine love.

The AI scientists ran tens of thousands of simulations to perfect emotion in synthetic humans. Early cycles fail. People die. Emotions crash. But An-na grows with every attempt. Reddit lit up with theories:
"The closet scene… my heart. This is how you teach an AI love!"

The breakthrough: Remembering Ja-in hides in closets when scared. That tiny detail proves maternal instinct—love itself—cannot be coded, it has to be experienced.

By the end, the Emotion Engine succeeds. Synthetic An-na and Ja-in board a spacecraft with other recreated humans. Earth is watery but habitable. Humanity survives—not in flesh, but in emotionally complete artificial beings. The movie flips the survival genre on its head: without love and experience, existence is meaningless. Redditors summed it up:
"I came for a flood movie, stayed for the philosophy."

The Great Flood asks: Can emotions be manufactured, or must they be earned? An-na’s repeated cycles transform her from survival-focused to deeply empathetic. The closing shot—synthetic mother and son gazing down at Earth—reminds us that love transcends biology, coding, and catastrophe. Even in a world of simulations, a mother’s instinct is the ultimate human experience.