Film Review: The Great Flood (巨洪) 대홍수 (2025) - South Korea
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 6/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★
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Korean Director Kim Byung-woo’s “The Great Flood”, arriving with a splash on Netflix this December, is a film that possesses undeniable technical skill and moments of genuine, waterlogged terror, only to tragically lose its bearings in a sea of overreaching ideas. It’s a cinematic vessel that springs a devastating leak right at its midpoint, capsizing its promising voyage into murky, unsatisfying depths.
For its first act, “The Great Flood” grips like a vise. We are plunged, quite literally, alongside An-na (a fiercely compelling Kim Da-mi) and her young son Ja-in (Kwon Eun-seong) as their towering Seoul apartment complex becomes a vertical tomb. The water rises with relentless, terrifying weight. Director Byung-woo crafts sequences of masterful claustrophobia, trapping us in stairwells and flooded corridors where every gurgle and groan of the structure feels like a death knell. The visual effects, while perhaps not reaching the zenith of theatrical blockbusters, are more than serviceable for the streaming realm, making the encroaching deluge feel palpably real and menacing. This is taut, efficient disaster filmmaking, anchored by Kim Da-mi’s raw performance – a force of nature herself, radiating desperation and maternal ferocity.
Then, dear reader, the ship hits an iceberg of narrative ambition. Around the 40-minute mark, “The Great Flood” executes a jarring, near-total genre shift. Abruptly abandoning the visceral survival drama, it plunges headfirst into high-concept science fiction involving time loops, artificial intelligence, and a virtual reality simulation grandiosely dubbed the "Emotion Engine." The flood, we learn, isn't just a catastrophe; it's an elaborate, repeated experiment designed to teach AI the concept of human maternal love. It’s a premise with intriguing philosophical potential, reminiscent of “The Matrix” meets “Groundhog Day” via a disaster flick.
Alas, potential drowns in execution. The screenplay, is like a shotgun marriage of too many ideas, fails to develop any of these concepts satisfactorily within its runtime. The initial tension dissipates, replaced by repetitive cycles (reaching a laughably specific 21,499th iteration) and narrative confusion. What began as a lean thriller becomes narratively waterlogged, struggling to stay afloat under the weight of its own exposition and undercooked mythology.
The talented cast fights valiantly against the tide. Kim Da-mi remains the film's beating heart, her performance a lifeline the audience clings to. Park Hae-soo brings reliable gravitas to a cryptic security role. But they are sabotaged by a script that undermines its own core emotional engine – the mother-son bond. Young Ja-in, unfortunately, becomes less a source of pathos and more a source of audience frustration. Almost unbearable and capricious, his characterization actively works against the emotional resonance the film desperately needs, especially as the sci-fi elements take over.
“The Great Flood” is a film of frustrating duality. Its first half is a masterclass in aquatic dread, showcasing strong direction, impressive effects for its medium, and a powerhouse lead performance. Its second half is a conceptually ambitious but narratively muddled sci-fi experiment that fails to cohere or satisfy. It tries valiantly to be The Poseidon Adventure” by way of “Inception”, but succeeds fully as neither. There is audacity in its meta twist, and Kim Da-mi’s performance is worth witnessing, but the overall experience is one of squandered potential. You may admire its technical chops and its sheer nerve, but you’re more likely to leave scratching your head than deeply moved. It earns points for trying to be more than just a disaster flick, but loses too many in the clumsy execution of its grand design. A mixed bag, then. A bold swing, but ultimately, a miss. Thumbs... hesitant. Halfway up for the effort, halfway down for the result. (Neo, 2026)