In the premiere of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes is having a tough time, and part of that is shown through his friendship with an older Asian man named Yori Nakajima.
This man represents what Bucky Barnes is trying to deal with as he comes to grip with his past as a brainwashed assassin.
Who is Yori in Falcon and the Winter Soldier?
While Falcon is flying high and trying to fight the good fight while simultaneously trying to save his family’s business kin Louisiana, Winter Soldier has it tougher.
The United States pardoned Bucky Barnes, and part of the stipulations behind this was to see a therapist on a regular basis and work through his past.
What his therapist might not know is that Bucky is literally working through his past in his real life. He actually took down one of the people he trained in the past when he was the Winter Soldier before they could order a hit on a government official.
He also has another way he is working through the past.
He has made a friend named Yori, an older man from Brooklyn. This man ties into nightmares that Bucky has been having recently.
In the nightmares, he is the Winter Soldier and he pulls off a perfect assassination. However, there is an innocent bystander who is unable to get into his room and saw everything. Bucky kills this young man in cold blood.
Bucky has become friends with Yori, even though the old man mostly wants to be left alone. They have meals together on occasion and Yori even helped Bucky get a date.
It is on this date with a waitress from the restaurant they eat at that he learned a little more about Yori. The girl tells Bucky that the man has been a shell of his former self since his son died senselessly and he never learned what happened or why. He was just told his son was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Bucky left the date early and went to see Yori, with the excuse that he was paying him back for their lunch. He looked into the apartment and found a small vigil with a candle and a photo of the man’s son.
It was the bystander that the Winter Soldier killed.
There is no version of Yori in Marvel Comics, but he appears to be someone that will help Bucky try to atone for his past sins.
“What we wanted to do was create a storyline that would personify all the people he’s killed,” head writer Malcolm Spellman told TheWrap.
Yori’s name is on Bucky’s list, but is not crossed off yet, so expect him to return later in the series.
Who plays Yori in Falcon and the Winter Soldier?
Ken Takemoto plays Yori in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Takemoto was born in 1934 and has a massive resume as both an actor and a costume designer. His list of film credits include Moana, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier airs new episodes every Friday on Disney+.