The fusion of close quarters martial arts, firearms and havy artillery is a breathtaking one in new series Butterfly – streaming on Prime Video.
Injecting a fresh new perspective into the action-packed spy thriller genre, Korean American co-production Butterfly skilfully juggles intense family dynamics with intense thrills, relentless violence and global espionage. It’s based on the BOOM! Studios graphic novel series created by Arash Amel and Marguerite Bennett and adapted by Ken Woodruff (The Mentalist, Gotham) who serves as showrunner and co-creator alongside crime writer Steph Cha.
The star of the show is Daniel Dae Kim as David Jung. Best known for his much-loved turns as Jin-Soo Kwon in J.J. Abrams’ Lost and as Chin Ho Kelly in the reboot of Hawaii Five-0, the Busan native is in magnetic form as a former US intelligence operative who resurfaces in South Korea after faking his own death nine years previously.
Now he must confront his past thanks to sociopathic daughter Rebecca (Reina Hardesty). His estranged offspring is now working at Caddis, the sinister clandestine intelligence agency her father helped found, and has been trained as a highly skilled, vicious assassin. Things get complicated when she is sent to kill him. Moral dilemmas, explosive violence and a fraught father-daughter relationship unfold as the unpredictable Jung navigates his guilt, loyalties, paternal love and his innate instinct to stay alive.
“I’ve always been interested in projects that bridge cultures. Being Korean American, I’ve lived and experienced two different ones that I have never seen really melded together on screen before through the lens of someone like me, a Korean American,” Kim told TV Insider.
“So, when this project came along through a meeting that I had with Boom Comics, I thought, ‘Well, it’s a show about a father and daughter. It’s set in Europe, but maybe I can actually change it to Asia and I can address some of the themes that have been really important to me through my life.’ And that was really what got me excited about this, and that’s where we got the ball rolling.”
Hardesty is sensational as Rebecca, the agent sent to kill Jung. She handles the exhilarating action sequences with aplomb and the complex emotional notes with a tenderness that belies the killing machine that her character has become. Probably best known as the Weather Witch in The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, her chemistry with Kim combined with a physical intensity ensure that the action and the big reveals are bruising.
To this end, the set pieces are brilliantly staged. The fusion of close quarters martial arts, firearms and heavy artillery is a breathtaking one and the action is exhilarating in its brutal simplicity. Greatly aided by Kim’s lean and muscular performance that sells every body blow, punch, stab and throat slash.
But, as Kim Tae Hee who plays the pivotal role of Eunju Kim told Yahoo, the show isn’t all about bloody bone-crunching mayhem, even though its features its fair share. “I was drawn to the story because, yes, it was a spy thriller, but more than that, it had a deep emotional thread about family.”
The rest of the cast boasts Piper Perabo as Juno, the head of Caddis who has ties with Jung and is determined to sever them whatever the cost. Sean Dulake plays Hollis, her right-hand man and Kim Ji-hoon plays crazed assassin Gun (whose frenzied fighting style and moody asides wouldn’t look out of place in Gareth Evans’ Indonesian martial arts actioner The Raid) and Charles Parnell takes on the role of the always suspicious Senator George Dawson. Even Squid Game‘s Park Hae-soo makes an appearance.
But that often-mentioned omnipresent death-defying game show drama isn’t the only South Korean import to have made an impact on the world’s viewing habits. Streamers like the schoolyard zombie apocalypse of All of Us Are Dead, the criminal thrills of The Worst of Evil and the mafia machinations of Vincenzo have all seen familiar genre tropes brought to life as seen through the eyes of a new colonial viewpoint and Butterfly does the same.
The Korean landscapes and locations also give this spy thriller a unique visual standpoint. It’s a testament to the new wave of streamed television that we are now living in, that mainstream audiences embrace drama from every corner of the globe.
These shows are popular because of the diversity of characters, the engaging storylines and a visual aesthetic that make them stand out from the streaming crowd. Especially in Butterfly‘s culture clash between America and Korea where customs, traditions, beliefs and values are so different.
And that’s what Butterfly does best. Look beyond the high-octane thrill of annihilation and the promise of an emotional pay-off and this spy drama delivers a deep dive into the intricacies of South Korean culture and is all the more thrilling because of it.
