REVIEW: ‘Butterfly’ Continues Prime Video’s Spy Thriller Streak

Prime Video’s latest original spy thriller series, Butterfly (2025), was announced in 2023. An adaptation of the BOOM! Studios’ graphic novel series created by Arash Amel, the six-episode series stars and is executive-produced by Daniel Dae Kim, with the original comic series author and BOOM! Studios’ Adam Yoelin is also serving as EPs.

A bilingual series, Butterfly, is directed by Kim Jin-min, Kitao Sakurai, and Jann Turner, and Ken Woodroof serves as showrunner & co-creator with Steph Cha. Additionally, the series features an international cast with big names including Kim Ji-hoon, Park Hae-soo, Kim Tae-hee, Charles Parnell, Sean Dulake, Nayoon Kim, Sung Dong-il, and Lee Il-hwa.

While directors Turner and Sakurai don’t have the longest filmography, director Kim has been attached to Korean television series that span genres from melo-drama hits like Bitter Sweet Life and Netflix’s thrilling high school series Extracurricular, the sci-fi series Goodbye Earth, and one of the best action series on Netflix, My Name. It’s the latter of these that stand out the most in Butterfly (2025). 

Daniel Dae Kim is at his absolute best in Butterfly (2025).

A balance of family drama and an action espionage story, Butterfly is a character-driven spy-thriller that doesn’t shy away from the moral gray areas. The focal point of the series is David Jung (Daniel Dae Kim), an enigmatic former U.S. intelligence operative living off the grid in South Korea. 

But lying low in Korea isn’t the crux of the story; instead, it’s the fact that he’s left his family. When he’s betrayed while on assignment, David’s life is shattered. Forced to leave his family behind, David chooses to let the world think that he’s dead. But when the repercussions of an impossible decision from his past return to haunt him, he’s confronted with his past in a way that he doesn’t expect. 

That’s where his daughter Rebecca (Reina Hardesty) comes in. Now a deadly and sociopathic young agent for David’s former agency, Caddis, and partner Juno, Rebecca is a reminder of his guilt and all she feels is anger. Butterfly starts by showing Rebecca coming to terms with the lie that her father was dead. It’s a shock, he’s her target, and she has no other choice.

Family dynamics are as much a focus of this Prime Video series as espionage is.

As she begins to let go of her grief, Rebecca realizes how much David doesn’t trust her. Moreover, as the duo attempts to escape the Caddis’ radar, she meets David’s current family. A daughter named Min-lee () and a wife named Eun-ju (Kim Tae-hee), Rebecca can’t feel but feels anger and pain. He left her and her American mother and replaced them with a Korean family, as she says in the show. 

It’s through Rebecca and David’s relationship and the backdrop of action they’re running from, and seeing tender moments of her father with Min-lee (Nayoon Kim), that the audience explores deeper family dynamics than is expected from this kind of genre television. While the series does its best to stay on target for the genre, with ample amounts of action, particularly as the assassin Gun (Kim Ji-hoon) closes in on Rebecca and David repeatedly, the emotional core of the series is what makes it stand out. 

The familial chemistry between actors Kim and Hardesty is emotional all the time. From the moment they realize who they are to each other, the two of them carry weighty guilt every time they talk. When they discuss moments from Rebecca’s childhood, there is always pain between the two. There is love, but there is so much guilt and resentment that it’s sometimes hard to feel it. 

A bilingual series, Butterfly lets its South Korean actor shine, but none more than Kim Ji-hoon.

For Kim, it makes his performance outstanding. Daniel Dae Kim highlights his action physicality especially in fight sequences with Kim Ji-hoon (a fantastic actor known for his work on action and thriller series like Flower of Evil, Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area, Narco-Saints, and the action revenge film Ballerina), who plays the primary physical antagonist and assassin Gun.

But where he shines is in the tenderness he shows as a father. It’s clearly on display when he’s playing with Min-hee, but it’s also there when he looks at Rebecca and what he’s done to put her down the path she’s on now. Daniel Dae Kim’s ability to move between loving father to ruthless and efficient killer, without losing the love for his daughters in that switch, is what makes the series outstanding. 

For her part, Reina Hardesty as Rebecca also delivers a balanced performance. It’s no surprise that Hardesty’s fight sequences are so well done, given that Director Kim offered one of the best female action characters in My Name. In Butterfly (2025), none of Rebecca’s action sequences feel watered down compared to her male co-stars. This makes for a compelling character that deepens as you see her become more than her lethality. 

Reina Hardesty as Rebecca delivers a vulnerable but intimidating performance.

But it’s not just the leads that build a compelling story. For their part, Korean drama veterans Kim Ji-hoon, Park Hae-soo, and Kim Tae-hee are all exciting additions to the cast from a start status perspective, but they’re performances offer depth to who David is and who he wants to be. On the other side, Piper Perabo’s Juno is self-centered, egotistical, and ruthless, until her son (Louis Landau) is in danger. All of the ensemble performances offer depth to Butterfly’s world.

With only six episodes, Butterfly has to cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. David’s past has to come into focus in order to define his present, and the series executes that well. Additionally, by keeping the cast of characters mostly tight, the series’ mystery is allowed to unfold and keep every character you meet under suspicion, which drives the tension. 

From its take on spy action to the character development, and deep investment in family dynamics, Butterfly (2025) is a big win for Daniel Dae Kim, both as an Executive Producer and actor. Unafraid of being a bilingual series, handling the aspects of never feeling quite at home, and the grief that comes with feeling like you were abandoned, the series is more than it looks like on paper. It’s just good, and it shows that Prime Video has its pulse on the genre for the better.

Butterfly (2025) is streaming now, exclusively on Prime Video.