'Butterfly' is a frustrating spy thriller with a few too many twists

'Butterfly' is a frustrating spy thriller with a few too many twists

John Powers

September 03, 2025 / 9:42 am

The great Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg once told me that the problem with movie sex scenes is that the movie just stops while we watch the actors have sex. I feel that way about action scenes, especially on TV. Although a handful of directors can make them thrilling — Kathryn Bigelow , Jackie Chan , George Miller — I nearly always find myself waiting for the chase to end or the gunfire to die down so we can get back to the story.

A case in point is Butterfly , a new Prime Video series starring Daniel Dae Kim as a spook who comes out of hiding to save his long-lost daughter. Loosely adapted from a graphic novel by Arash Amel, this labyrinthine six-parter sen