Ivan Radford | On 17, Aug 2025

If you don’t know the name Daniel Dae Kim, you’ll certainly know the man and his work. As well as starring in Lost and the Divergent films, he’s stolen scenes in Angel, ER and 24, and almost walked away with the whole film in Netflix’s rom-com Always Be My Maybe. Behind the scenes, he runs his own production company, which was behind The Good Doctor, and inked a first-look deal with Amazon Studios. This summer, Butterfly has emerged from that partnership – and it fittingly sees Kim flourish in the leading man role he deserves.

Based on the graphic novels created by Arash Amel, the six-part series follows David Jung (Daniel Dae Kim), a former US intelligence agent who is living off the radar in South Korea. Inevitably, his past catches up with him – less inevitably, it does so in the middle of a karaoke night, something that sets the tone for Amazon’s show: it’s familiar enough to be accessible, but never misses an opportunity for some sharply choreographed, nicely conceived action.

Enter into the picture Rebecca (Reina Hardesty), a young and decidedly active agent working for spy agency Caddis. Assigned a job in a swanky hotel, she wastes no time in taking out her target – while wearing a fake pregnancy suit and swapping costumes several times. Within the show’s first 20 minutes, she’s having a close-quarters knife fight in a moving elevator, while he’s strangling someone with a microphone wire. Butterfly is a mission to entertain, and it knows exactly what it’s doing.

The show is perfectly paced, hitting all the required beats but doing so at high speed. The first act introduces the key plot detail on which everything hinges: David is Rebecca’s father, but disappeared from her life nine years ago for her own safety, leaving her to think he was dead. The fun twist is that everyone else thought he was dead too, including the sinister Juno (an enjoyably villainous Piper Perabo), who’s in charge of Caddis. And so the stage is set for varying combinations of confrontations, chases and rescue attempts – a mess of emotions, misunderstandings and arguments that also includes David’s very understanding wife, Eunju (Kim Tae-hee).

None of this would work without a sense of catharsis or resolution, and the cast sell it all by wearing their hearts on their sleeves – and then promptly rolling up their sleeves to punch people. Reina Hardesty is superb as the confused, resentful, hopeful and ruthless Rebecca, who is still working out her loyalties but is determined to look after herself no matter what.

Daniel Dae Kim, meanwhile, is a joy to watch in action, as he ricochets from hurt and scared to protective and vengeful, by way of panicked, focused and formidable. It’s an emotionally open performance that brings layers of complexity to David’s character without ever getting in the way of what he’s here to do – he’s a naturally charismatic screen presence and it’s a thrill to see him in the spotlight. The fact that he’s helped shine that spotlight himself only underlines his talent – it’ll be exciting to see what he does next.

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