For most of the last six centuries, Cheongnyeongpo — a river bend in Yeongwol County, Gangwon Province — drew the kind of visitor who already knew Korean history cold: the spot is tied to the 15th-century exile of the boy-king Danjong, deposed and banished here under the Joseon Dynasty. It was a pilgrimage for history buffs, not a long-weekend destination. Then, this winter, it became the backdrop of a movie that turned into the second most-watched Korean film of all time — and the quiet riverbank started seeing traffic it had never handled before.
The film is “The King’s Warden,” released Feb. 4, 2026, and directed by Jang Hang-jun, according to The Korea Times (Apr. 16, 2026, citing Xportsnews reporting). It tells the story of a village leader trying to revive his community alongside the young dethroned king, set during the Joseon era. The film crossed 10 million viewers in just 32 days — the first Korean film to hit that mark in two years — and by mid-April had drawn more than 16.4 million viewers, making it Korea’s second-most-watched film ever, the report says.
Cheongnyeongpo, the film’s main location, saw visitor numbers climb as much as eightfold during peak periods, per local reports cited by The Korea Times, with the surge concentrated around winter vacation and the March 1st holiday weekend. Crucially, the boost didn’t stop at the riverbank: nearby Gwanpungheon Hall and Jangneung Royal Tomb — both tied to the same Danjong-exile history — saw their own visitor bumps as tourists strung the sites together into a single regional history route, rather than visiting just one filming spot and leaving.
Local governments noticed fast. Cheonan City, hundreds of kilometers away, put out a promotional video built around the tomb of Han Myeong-hoe — a historical figure who appears in the film as a controversial player in Danjong’s downfall — betting that fans curious about the film’s history would follow the thread to a tomb most had never heard of. The Korea Times calls it an unconventional marketing move, and it’s a useful tell: once a single location starts pulling crowds, every place even loosely connected to the same story starts angling for a piece of the traffic.
It’s worth noting this isn’t an isolated case this season — the horror film “Salmokji” sent a comparable spike of late-night visitors to a reservoir in North Chungcheong Province around the same time, on a completely different mechanism (urban-legend curiosity rather than historical pilgrimage). But “The King’s Warden” is the more telling example, because it shows a movie doesn’t just send fans to one photogenic spot. It can reactivate an entire dormant regional history route — a tomb, a hall, a riverbank that locals had treated as background scenery for generations — and turn all of it into a single weekend itinerary, just because enough people watched the same film in the same season.
Sources: Xportsnews, “From ‘The King’s Warden’ to ‘Salmokji,’ Film Locations Turn into Tourism Hot Spots in Korea,” The Korea Times (Apr. 16, 2026).
