Suncheon's drama film set, where three decades of Korean streets still stand

In Suncheon, near the southern coast, a broadcaster built three decades of Korean street life on a hillside and never took it down. The Suncheon Drama Film Set is not tied to any one show. It is a working backlot, and period dramas still come here to film a past that the real cities have mostly demolished.

Three eras on one slope

The set was first built in 2006 for the SBS drama Sarang-gwa Yamang (Love and Ambition), and later productions have added to it. It has three zones. The first is a Suncheon town centre from the 1950s and 60s. The second is a Seoul shopping street from the 1980s. Climbing the hill behind them is the third, a 1960s and 70s daldongne (달동네), the "moon village" of hillside shacks where people who moved to Seoul for work once lived. On the Seoul street, painted signboards advertise barbers, comic-book rental shops and tea rooms, all in the hand-lettered style of the period.

Why the hillside is the part to see

Most of Seoul's real daldongne have been replaced by apartment blocks, and that is why directors keep coming back here. As you walk up, the alleys narrow to shoulder width, tin and slate roofs crowd together, and coal-briquette stoves sit beside the doorways. The view from the top runs back over the whole set to the mountains. It feels less like nostalgia than a lesson: this is how closely a generation of Seoul families lived.

드라마는 끝나도 골목은 남는다.

Planning the visit

Suncheon is roughly two and a half to three hours from Seoul's Yongsan Station by KTX, and the set is a short taxi or city-bus ride from Suncheon Station. Give it about ninety minutes. The slope is steep and partly unpaved, so wear shoes with good grip. Shops near the entrance rent 1970s-style school uniforms (gyobok, 교복) for photographs, and parts of the set may be roped off while a crew is filming. To fill the rest of the day, add the reed wetlands of Suncheon Bay, which turn gold in late autumn.