Take a trip to the shooting location, who knows, you might meet Baek Hyun-woo and Hong Hae-in

Traveling to former film shooting locations is increasingly popular. You can feel the atmosphere and fantasize about meeting your idol.

AFP/JOHN MACDOUGALL

Tourists look up from a dome walkway at the Lustgarten and Altes Museum on top of the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom) in Berlin, Germany, April 24, 2024. The Berlin Cathedral was one of the shooting locations for the Korean drama, Queen of Tears

Starting from Seoul, Daegu, to Berlin, Potsdam and Frankfurt, netizens watched Korean drama, Queen of Tears , busy sharing stories and experiences tracing the journey of Baek Hyun-woo and Hong Hae-in's love story. The romantic drama just finished on Netflix with 16 episodes, Sunday (28/4/2024).

main character Baek Hyun-woo is played by actor Kim Soo-hyun, while Hong Hae-in is played by actress Kim Ji-won. The story of the love drama between the two ends "happy and sad".

In tracing the journey of Baek and Hong's love drama, fans of Korean dramas (drakor) explored every shooting location, then uploaded them to social media Instagram and Tiktok. "Who knows, maybe you might meet Baek Hyun-woo and Hong Hae-in," wrote a netizen who visited Berlin Cathedral, one of the filming locations for Queen of Tears in Germany.

"Are there still any love locks of Baek Hyun-woo and Hong Hae-in left to find?" wrote another internet user while going through one by one the love locks on the Eiserner Steg love bridge, which stretches over the River Main in Frankfurt.

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"Sitting on the stairs where Baek Hyun-woo and Hong Hae-in took their child for a walk," wrote one netizen while showing a video recording of themselves sitting on the stairs in the courtyard of the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany.

The summer palace of King Frederick II is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This place was also the location of shooting for the final episode of Queen of Tears. Together with the Berlin Cathedral and the Eiserner Steg love padlock bridge, the palace has become a new tourist attraction targeted by Korean drama lovers.

KOMPAS/ARYO WISANGGENI GENTHONG

Actor Song Seung-heun, who plays Lee Kyeom (right, wearing traditional Korean clothing), has a discussion with director Yun Sang-ho (second from right) during filming for the drama series Saimdang, The Her Story in the private home complex of 15th century Korean artist Shin Saimdang, in Gangneung City, South Korea, November 30 2015.

Not only in Germany, shooting locations in South Korea were also visited, such as Guryangri Station, Mungyeong EcoWorld Park, The Hyundai Seoul Mall, and Aqua Planet Ilsan.

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Since airing on March 9 2024, Queen of Tears has managed to record the highest viewership rating in drama history on Total Variety Network (tvN), an entertainment channel in South Korea. The storyline created by screenwriter Park Ji-eun is also able to make the audience always shed tears and their emotions go up and down like a roller coaster ride in every episode.

The drama was so popular that its shooting locations soon became new tourist attractions. Tourists from abroad are also increasingly coming. Positive impacts like this have made many local governments in South Korea offer to be filming locations for Korean dramas which are predicted to be successful.

Shooting for the drama Queen of Tears was carried out in the cities of Seoul and Daegu in South Korea to Berlin, Potsdam and Frankfurt in Germany. The Daegu and North Gyeongsang regions benefit the most because they are prime shooting locations. Mungyeong City, North Gyeongsang, is told as the hometown of the main character, Baek Hyun-woo.

Many local governments in South Korea have offered to be filming locations for Korean dramas which are predicted to be successful.

In April 2023, the Mungyeong City Government signed a business agreement with drama production company, Studio Dragon. They supported the company with a production cost of 500 million won or around Rp. 5.9 billion so that they would shoot in their area.

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Now, the Mungyeong City Government hopes to regain its capital by attracting domestic and foreign tourists who want to retrace the journey of Hong Hae-in and Baek Hyun-woo.

Footsteps

The experience of a shooting location becoming a new tourist spot does not only happen to the drama Queen of Tears. This phenomenon always occurs in films that are considered successful.

The shooting location for the drama Winter Sonata on Nami Island is still a tourist destination with many visitors. In fact, the drama was broadcast in 2001. There are also favorite shooting locations for various Korean dramas in South Korea, Jeju Island, including Jewel in the Palace (2003) and Crash Landing on You(2019).

ARSIP ERRY ANDRIYATI

Korean drama lover, Erry Andriyati, visited Petite France and posed in front of a poster of Do Min Joon, the name of the character in the drama My Love from The Star.

It's not just Korean dramas that have a positive impact on tourism in shooting locations. Western films are the same. Examples include the films Harry Potter (England), The Da Vinci Code (France and England), and The Lord of the Rings (New Zealand). In Indonesia, the films Eat, Pray, and Love (Bali), Laskar Pelangi (East Belitung), and What's Up with Love also catapulted the region and the points where the films were shot.

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Platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross Station in London, England, which is the shooting location for the Harry Potter film series, is currently flooded with tourists. Even though the platform is fictional, people are still curious and look for its location. Once you meet them, you have to be a little patient if you want to take photos with the "pretend to run while carrying suitcases crashing into the wall" setting because the queue is never empty.

Likewise, the shooting location for The Da Vinci Code was at the Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Museum visitors can explore the places where Professor Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) and Sophie Neveu acted while listening to the guide's explanation using a headset.

KOMPAS/ALOYSIUS BUDI KURNIAWAN

Tourists queue to enter the entrance to the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The Louvre Museum is one of the most popular tourist destinations in France. This museum was one of the filming locations for the film The Da Vinci Code

Alternatively, for a more exciting experience, tourists can also join The Da Vinci Code Trail tour. For 2.5 hours, tourists are taken on a walking journey tracing the Rose Line path followed by Langdon and Sophie in London. However, the tour price is relatively expensive, around Rp 2 million. This price is before the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Even though it is expensive, to this day the tour still attracts many tourists from various countries who hope to find clues that lead to the Holy Grail (Holly Grail).

Replica made

In East Belitung there is also a "Laskar Pelangi" tour package. The tour package provides more freedom to explore the places on your own. Tourists can come to the Muhammadiyah Gantong Elementary School shooting location in Lenggang Village. Even though it is a replica, its condition is made as similar as possible to the original elementary school described by novelist Andrea Hirata in his book.

The journey can continue to the Andrea Hirata Word Museum and Tanjung Tinggi Beach to relax while enjoying the sunset and coconut ice.

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

Tourists visit a replica of the shooting location for the film Laskar Pelangi, SD Muhammadiyah Gantong, in East Belitung Regency, Bangka Belitung Islands, June 15 2016.

In the Chinese imperial complex, the Forbidden City, in Beijing, China, there is a special tour of the film The Last Emperor (1987). This film tells the story of the life of Emperor Puyi, the last emperor of China from the Qing Dynasty.

The film, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, is based on Puyi's autobiography, From Emperor to Citizen (1964-1965). It was the first feature film permitted to be shot inside the Forbidden City. This film later won nine Academy Awards, including for best picture.

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Even though there are no special tours, the tour guides always include information that this or that place is the shooting location for the film. ”December 1908, Puyi was crowned Emperor of the Qing Dynasty at the age of two years after the death of Emperor Guangxu. "This is also a shooting location," said the tour guide, pointing towards the emperor's throne which was about 4 meters away.

KOMPAS/LUKI AULIA

Visitors to the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, September 9, 2022.

Although not allowed to approach, the atmosphere depicted in the film can already be felt. It is easier to imagine Puyi engaging in activities inside the Forbidden City's complex, as shown in his film scenes, when located there in person.

Film tourism

This feeling of "as if you were in a film" then succeeded in "selling" the shooting locations. Films and television series make us want to travel to the places where the films are made.

This trend is known as set-jetting or flying to see the shooting locations of your favorite films. It becomes a journey that begins with emotions triggered by the screen and ends with real-life experiences.

Sangkyun Kim from Edith Cowan University and Stijn Reijnders from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the book Film Tourism in Asia: Evolution, Transformation and Trajectory (2018) mention the popularity of film tourism a> has increased dramatically over the last 10 years.

However, this is not a new phenomenon. The film and television industry, with its integral system between fame and fandom, has influenced mobility and tourism since the emergence of cinema. The rise of the film industry and its stars in the 1920s led to a similar interest in filming locations and homes of movie stars in Hollywood, USA.

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Before the cinema era exploded, tourists had already been visiting locations associated with popular novels and writers, at least since the end of the 19th century.

This literary tourism is often considered the forerunner of film tourism. At least this is proven by the majority of television and film scripts inspired or directly based on classical literature since the end of the 20th century. Some examples include The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Jane Eyre.

CREDIT PHOTO: COURTESY OF PRIME VIDEO

The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power

Professor of Social Sciences and Communication at the European University of Madrid, Spain, Francisco José Pradana, to the daily El Pais, January 26 2023, also said that popular films are effective as promotional campaigns for tourism at shooting locations. /i> and boost film tourism. As an illustration, research by the World Tourism Organization and Netflix found that, because of the film Crocodile Dundee, demand for tourist visas to Australia skyrocketed by 40 percent from 1984 to 1992.

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Maya Bay Beach on Phi Phi Leh Island in Thailand is flooded with tourists who come after watching the film The Beach. Nearly 5,000 people come every day.

On one hand, it's pleasing, but on the other hand, it's sad considering that the beach later became damaged due to an excessive number of visitors. The beach then had to be temporarily closed to restore its white sandy beach and coral reefs.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy also increased the number of annual visitors to New Zealand by 40 percent in 2000-2006. The story of Harry Potter increased tourists to England by 230 percent (2011-2013).

PHOTO BY HANDOUT / THAI NATIONAL PARK, WILDLIFE AND PLANT CONSERVATION DEPARTMENT / AFP

This photo from Thai National Park management shows the beach at Maya Bay on Koh Phi Phi Island closed and visitors prohibited from coming, October 3 2018. This beach was one of the filming locations for the film The Beach.

To attract film and TV productions, shooting locations must have an attractive setting. After that, the social media campaign must be accelerated. Interviews with actors, directors and screenwriters were made to discuss their experiences at the destination. This promotional strategy was used in the film Games of Thrones in Ireland until the opening of the Games of Thrones Studio Tour in Banbridge.

Also read: Films become promotional media for tourist destinations

A similar promotional strategy will also be carried out by the United Arab Emirates Government, which has been hosting famous films, such as Mission Impossible-Ghost Protocol, Syriana, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and most recently, Dune: Part Two.

Everyone wants to get a piece of thisset-jettingtourism cake. The combination of travel and love of films is an effective recipe for developing tourism.

Nothing is more enjoyable than the feeling of following in the footsteps of a character in a movie that we watch. Moreover, being able to enjoy the beauty of the shooting location that we would have never known if we didn't watch the film or television series.

There are shooting locations that are actually fictitious or have been dismantled. There were also those that had to be temporarily closed because they were damaged due to a flood of tourists. Many also limit visits with a quota system.

However, the shooting location still has its own charm and brings in a wave of curious tourists.