Kencho Omotenashi Ka :: A 2 Hour Long Tourism Video

A new division is formed within the Tourism Department at the Kochi Prefectural Office in Kochi Prefecture. Called the ‘Omotenashi-ka’, or Hospitality Division, they’re tasked with the job of trying to increase tourism to Kochi Prefecture and improve the overall impression Japan has of the prefecture after a string of failed attempts and missed opportunities, such as neighboring Kagawa Prefecture’s Odon Prefecture campaign and the infamous Panda Yuchiron bust, a plan proposed 25 years ago to the prefecture in order to bring over pandas to attract visitors but being ultimately turned down unanimously before the presentation even begun.

Desperately looking for a change, the Hospitality Division springs into action without really know how to go for in accomplishing this goal.  Kakemizu, a young and optimistic government employee played by Nishikido Ryo, then makes the first move. They first try to make an attempt to enlist a celebrity, a famous writer named Yoshikado, who was born and raised in Kochi, to act as a spokesperson but the writer quickly turns down their request. He finds their plans faulty and atypical, so he assigns them a task that involves finding a young woman who’s not a government employee to better connect with the people and to research a proposal titled, Panda Yuchiron, or Panda Attraction Proposal.

Ironically enough, this all falls into Kakemizu’s lap seamlessly  He’s able to find a common girl while researching the Panda proposal named Taki and the Panda proposal leads him to a man named Kiyotoo. From there on, the story takes off into a tale about …

… a tale about …

…….. about…..

Well, shit I guess there really wasn’t a story here.

Kenchou Omotenashi-ka (Prefectual Office, Hospitality Division), starts off with a story and then pretty much leaves you hanging. There’s really no conflict or resolution; rather the movie just plays off like a two hour PR video for Kochi Prefecture. Yeah, Kakemizu is the lead character but he seems more like a spokesperson blabbering about how fucking amazing Kochi Prefecture is and how fucking glad he is to be from Kochi rather than having to deal with the conflict of being in a division where the government really just doesn’t care for.

Even when the film reaches the uneventful climax, there’s this unfulfilling feeling of not caring for the division and their unexpected plight. Omotenashi-ka plays out more like a tourism video, spending too much time on Kakemizu and Taki’s characters going on sight seeing adventures to ‘explore’ Kochi for themselves and get a ‘better perspective’ of their home prefecture. The movie doesn’t tell a story, it gives you pretty pictures to an average movie score acted by an overpaid cast.

Which brings me to the second problem of the film; the acting is vapid and the accents sound weak. Kochi Prefecture’s dialects are a subdialect of Western Japanese, so it’s not a problem for Nishikido Ryo to emulate and twist into a more localized dialect but Horikita Maki’s dialect is harsh and stiff, lacking the fluid, yet gruffness, of the Western Japanese dialect. The only tiny instances where it sounds like she is home bred from Kochi Prefecture is when you hear the 〜き, which is distinctive to the Kochi prefecture. She also approaches her character as if she’s doesn’t know her character. She simply exists; whether we are to blame on the script or the director, who knows, but Horikita Maki leaves (yet again) an unmemorable cliche performance.

Nishikido is also not at his best with this role either. His character is cheery, a bit of an airhead when it comes to reading people, and optimistic but he doesn’t deliver anything new to the character. If people want to see Ryo being a cheery government employee who wants to show all of Japan how awesome Kochi is, then perhaps they’ll be satisfied with this character but for people who enjoy Ryo as an actor, seeing him in another ‘idol-safe’ performance devoid of any range will leave them feeling underwhelmed.

There’s also a love story in this movie, but it’s surprisingly unexpected, in some ways forced upon the audience, and adds nothing to the movie itself. It seems more of an after thought, filler to break up all the crane shots of mountains, rivers, and the prefectural office (which some scenes are questionable as to whether they were stock footage or not). Also, the reasons as to why Taki ends up working with the Hospitality Division are questionable at best.

Needless to say, it’s not a bad movie. It’s just a boring, uneventful, snorefest. I spent most of the time tweeting during the entire showing of the film and fell asleep during half of it. But it did spur up an interest in visiting Kochi so maybe it was successful in that department. Though, I feel that as a theatrical feature, it failed. It could have been better shown on Fuji Television as a two hour special drama than a $20 movie. I was fortunate enough to catch this movie for free but I would have been pissed off had I paid to see this film at the price movie tickets are in this country.

Also, as a government employee, the movie definitely gives off a fantasy representation of what a prefectural office is at. There are definitely no sweet and innocent Taki’s sweetly talking to the hearts of citizens everywhere or suave, yet gullible, Kakemizu’s fighting for the integrity of their great prefecture. They’re pretty much soulless institutions filled with papers and dated technology. Seeing that flat screen in their department was a shock.

Anyway, if you’re a Ryo fan (or Horkita fan), then maybe you should watch it (for free) but if not, I’d say pass on the film unless you wanna watch a Travel Channel special featuring Nishikido Ryo without the snarky awesomeness that is Anthony Bourdain.