Winter Sonata
- 5
- Locations
- 1
- Countries
- 2002
- Year
Kang Joon-sang and Jung Yu-jin are each other's first love at a high school in Chuncheon, until a traffic accident takes Joon-sang and the story breaks off. Ten years later an architect named Lee Min-hyung, wearing Joon-sang's face, walks back into Yu-jin's life. Directed by Yoon Seok-ho and written by Yoon Eun-kyung, Kim Eun-hee and Oh Soo-yeon, the 20 episode KBS 2TV series aired from 14 January to 19 March 2002, and its NHK satellite run the following year set off the Korean Wave boom in Japan.
The places this drama was shot in never gathered in one region, running from Nami Island in Chuncheon to Bukchon in Seoul, a ski slope in Pyeongchang, a beach on the East Sea and a garden island off Geoje, so the season tends to decide where you start. Come for snow and the drama's face is Nami Island and Yongpyong Resort; come for water and gardens and it becomes Chuam Beach and Oedo Botania.
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Filming Locations
남이섬 강원 춘천시 남산면
The island where Yu-jin and Joon-sang's first love began. The metasequoia lane running west from the crossroads of the central pine walk became the drama's signature shot, and together with the snowmen it is now the image the island is known by. You arrive by ferry, and to get the winter you saw on screen, come after snowfall.
중앙고등학교 서울 종로구 창덕궁길 164
The high school Joon-sang, Yu-jin and their broadcasting club friends attended. The story places it in Chuncheon, but the gate and the stone school building belong to Choongang High School in Gyedong, Bukchon, Seoul, and its main hall is a designated national historic site. After the drama aired in Japan the stationery shops outside the front gate turned into tourist shops, which is about as close as Korea gets to a starting point for filming location tourism. Classes still run here, so the rule is to look from outside the wall.
외도 보타니아 경남 거제시 일운면 외도길 17
The setting of the final episode. In the story it is the island Joon-sang, who lost his sight after the accident, built for his first love, and the Rhys house where the two meet again after three years stands inside this garden. It is a marine botanical garden floating off Geoje, so a boat is the only way in.
추암해변 강원 동해시 추암동
The first sea Yu-jin and Joon-sang saw together, and the last one, where Joon-sang tried to let her go after mistakenly believing they might be half siblings. Chotdaebawi, the candlestick rock that opens the video for the national anthem, stands on this shore, and a suspension bridge now crosses the rock forest so you can walk right up to it.
용평리조트 강원 평창군 대관령면
The snowed-in ski resort Yu-jin and Min-hyung visit together. Min-hyung runs the fictional White ski resort in the story, and the slopes behind him are Yongpyong Resort in Daegwallyeong. It opened as Korea's first ski resort and makes a snowbound village easy to stage, which is why later dramas including Guardian shot their winters here too.