Netflix's 'The Great Flood' Ending, Explained — And Was The Flood Real?

Netflix film The Great Flood has captured audiences’ attention, but some questions need to be answered. What caused the flood? Who is An-na, really? And what about that ending? Here’s more about the film.

What’s the plot of ‘The Great Flood’?

The Great Flood stars Kim Da-mi as An-na, a woman who is desperately trying to find her son Ja-in (Kwon Eun-seong) during a devastating flood affecting the entire world. According to Netflix’s Tudum and People, an asteroid hit Antarctica, causing the ice sheets to melt and flood the entire world. The extinction-level event is also threatening Seoul, Korea, with much of the city underwater. An-na is trapped in her apartment complex, hoping to find her son and escape.

Was the flood real in The Great Flood’?

Apparently, the flood might not have been real after all. An-na is an artificial intelligence researcher at the Darwin Center, a research organization in outer space hoping to prevent human extinction through artificial intelligence, according to People. An-na is over the Emotion Engine, an AI experiment aimed at figuring out how to give the synthetic humans they create “authentic emotions, feelings and thoughts.”

The flood, therefore, is a virtual simulation An-na has been living in. In fact, she’s been living through simulations for about 60 years. And her son, Ja-in, is a synthetic child she was tasked with raising. The simulation is all meant to help create human emotions in synthetic people.

But the very end of the film shows Earth covered in water, so it’s unclear if a real flood did actually happen within the 60 years of the simulation, or if it’s An-na living through yet another simulation.

Is An-na real?

She’s been doing the same simulation for 60 years, yet even though An-na is the conductor of the experiments, it’s unclear if she’s a synthetic human herself. One clue could be that she hasn’t aged in 60 years. But An-na’s true nature is seemingly up to the audience to decide.

What’s the ending of ‘The Great Flood’?

An-na seemingly completes the experiment when she finally discovers a new part of her own memory. She remembers that in the first ever simulation, she told Ja-in to hide in a closet. But she doesn’t remember until the last scenario.

She does save Ja-in and we last see them in a rocket headed back to a seemingly flooded Earth.