Butterfly

This East-meets-West spy thriller looks gorgeous and delivers good storytelling! Daniel Dae Kim & the Korean cast (Kim Tae-hee, Park Hae-soo, Kim Ji-hoon) absolutely shine with authentic performances. Production values are a standout, considering the writing swings from, good-to-average, throughout the series.

BUT... the action is painfully slow, gunshots sound like toy cap guns, pacing drags, ending flops hard, and some non-Korean actors (looking at you, Piper Perabo) deliver lines like yesterday's toast, with the writers repeating the same lines, over and over -

"That's David! That's David! That's David!"

**6/10** - Worth watching for the story & standout performances, but weak action keeps it grounded. Could've been an 8-9 with better choreography, less plot holes, better writing!

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Honestly I didn't have too high expectations going in. But it turned out better than expected.

A little slow at times but. Most of the actors did a good job. The reason I was hesitant, was because of Piper Perabo. Don't care much for her at all. So I kinda tried to ignore the scenes she was in 😅 Also glad that the guy playing her son was really weak character/actor. They could've done a better casting on him.

So to summarize all in all it was watchable and somewhat entertaining.

A two screen viewing experience, or a background viewing, while you're doing other stuff.

The biggest draws are strong actors (starting with Daniel Dae Kim and Piper Perabo) and immersive on location filming in Korea.

David (DDK) is a legendary spy and former founder of a global spy syndicate. Rebecca (Reina Hardesty) is his abandoned daughter now working for the syndicate and its amoral leader, Juno (Perabo).

There are so many Korean stars in this that you can lose count. That provides strong supporting performances.

The issues here are with plot lines and chemistry. The actors at the center of the emotional dysfunctional blended family story have no palpable chemistry, which sucks the life out of every scene, especially the ones that are supposed to be important. David and Rebecca display no true chemistry, so the plot points that are supposed to lead us to cheer for them don't work.

The plot is literally awash in tropes: cop buddies, road trip, soap opera blended family issues, partners hate at the outset then care for each other...and on, and on. Which can be overcome with intricate writing. Which doesn't happen here. The fact that a 2025 experienced audience knows what tropes are, how to recognize them, and where they lead, puts a big burden on a series like this that dips heavily into that bag.

Rebecca isn't as well defined as the director and actress might think. It seems that we're supposed to see her as a skilled assassin who's understandably broken; but with a dangerous psychotic joy in executing her prey. The performance doesn't nail this, making it a problem. We see her as a polished twenty-something assassin in the opening scenes, only to see her devolve into a petulant teenager who smirks and laughs at inappropriate moments. The scene where she shows a seven year old how to load and shoot a pistol should be horrifying. Instead it's just weird.

And, without intending to spoil anything, the last episode finale does what so many streaming series do these days: massive cliff hanger. Will there be a season two? Because if there isn't then the thin buy in isn't worth it.

Daniel saw kim is my eomma favorite actor so we binged watched the series All Korean actors did great it had amazing action scenes but felt like it was little all over the place it took long to get to from point A to Point B at times and the ending was a flop. Could have done better with it I think.

Butterfly is much like every other spy/assassin/espionage thriller out there. Although the acting was really good throughout, with great locations, the directing and writing let the storyline down dramatically. It could have been so much more entertaining and engrossing. With predictable plot-twists and the usual plot holes (perhaps great voids) the writers didn't really do a good job with what they had to offer and most of it was borrowed from other TV shows and movies. The opening dialogue of the pilot (ep 1) was copied straight from The Matrix, for example. 5/10 is more generous that what I should be awarding this show, mainly because of the poor job the directors did.